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Thread: Discussion on a United or re-partitioned Ireland

  1. #341
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    Quote Originally Posted by DannyInvincible View Post
    I suppose it is another reminder of just how far removed the minds of those in Britain are from Ireland and Irish affairs. They reside in a different political universe.
    It's an aching great chasm isn't it ? I mean if someone is furious with you, isn't your first port of call in dealing with that situation to identify what's triggered it ? This lot can watch families support their sons starving themselves to death and it never enters their sphere of thought to examine what might have gotten these people this pi**ed off to begin with. Remarkable.

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  3. #342
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    The Irish times has been running a series called "Ireland's Call".

    Here's one on Crossmaglen from the day after Paddy's.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Irish Times
    Ireland's Call: From ‘Bandit country’ to Brexit’s frontier

    During the dark years of the Troubles, the border village of Crossmaglen in south Armagh was famous for its resistance to British rule, from the “Sniper At Work” sign on the village square to GAA players defiantly playing as helicopters descended above them at the army barracks next door.
    Locals recall the “ring of steel” that once circled Cross and the political divisions that it brought to the area known as bandit country. Now, local people are apprehensive about a new emerging struggle – against the fall-out from Brexit. They fear a return to that kind of besieged outpost the village once was, given its location a few miles from the only land border between the UK and the EU.
    Since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and the disappearance of the army checkpoints on the border roads and watchtowers on the surrounding drumlins, the only giveaways that you have crossed the 499-kilometre border are the signs switching from kilometres to miles and the occasional sign informing customers that local businesses accept both euro and sterling.
    Now, roadside signs erected by the Border Communities Against Brexit leave motorists in no doubt that they have entered a new and changing jurisdiction, with warnings about a return to a hard border, customs checkpoints and “economic devastation”.
    “I grew up in that era. I would definitely not like to go back to checkpoints, and the new generation that is coming through have never seen that before,” said Gerard McMonagle, owner of the Cross Square Hotel, which is a hub of activity on what was once a deserted O’Fiach Square during the Troubles.
    “Anywhere you will have any sort of checkpoint, it is going to create tension,” he added, sipping a coffee in his hotel on Tuesday. “Leave it the way it is. We don’t want it to change.”

    In business for just 15 months, Mr McMonagle’s hotel enjoys a vibrant passing trade from cross-border shoppers or visitors to football tournaments at the nearby grounds of Crossmaglen Rangers, whose victories in All-Ireland Senior Club Football Championships since 1997 have restored the reputation of the village.
    Upcoming divorce
    The concern here is that the UK’s upcoming divorce from the EU could put the people here into the forced custody of an unwanted parent and disruptive permanent arrangements that would hurt all facets of everyday life and could threaten to unwind almost two decades of peace.
    Four of the 18 staff at the Cross Square Hotel cross the border every day from the Republic, while 40 per cent of Mr McMonagle’s suppliers come from the south. “If there is a hard border there do we have to try to get suppliers from the north of Ireland?” he pondered.
    Locals scratch their heads at how the cross-border ties in the community might be untangled in a post-Brexit world. They are equally frustrated at UK prime minister Theresa May and her government’s lack of consultation with the devolved Northern Irish government on what might happen beyond pulling the Article 50 trigger to leave the EU.
    To all intents and purposes, the border hardly exists to the people of Crossmaglen. Re-establishing a hard frontier would be like trying to unscramble an egg. Few knew how many times they cross the border every day and locals keep two currencies in their pockets.


    A 12-minute drive from Crossmaglen to Junction 17 of the M1 motorway, there are rows of parked cars on either side of the road, belonging to commuters who have travelled on to Dublin or Belfast by bus or in a car pool for work.
    Immediate family members live within miles of each other, but on opposite sides of the border. Some households draw social welfare and family benefits from both north and south. At least 20 local children cross the border twice a day to attend a local secondary school, while church-goers cross back and forth to attend Mass in different churches within the border-straddling Upper Creggan Parish.
    Life-saving arrangement
    McMonagle, through his work for the Crossmaglen Fire and Rescue Service, has seen first-hand cooperation north and south. Ambulances are sent across the border from Dundalk when paramedics in Newry are busy, to attend road-traffic accidents on Concession Road, the aptly named thoroughfare running from Louth to Monaghan through a sliver of Armagh. This can cut an ambulance’s journey to an accident by 15 to 20 minutes. A hard border might jeopardise this life-saving arrangement.
    “We can’t have one part of the parish in and one part of the parish out,” said Terry Hearty, a local farmer and Sinn Féin councillor representing south Armagh. “People voted here to remain [in the EU] and of course there would have to be a special status for us. It is the only way we could survive.”
    Mr Hearty fears the impact of customs checks on tourism in this picturesque Slieve Gullion area, a popular place for hill walkers, and how inspections of tour buses might stop tourists from returning.
    The imposition of post-Brexit tariffs on farm produce would deprive local farmers north of the border of the competition among dairies in the south that brings them better prices for their milk.
    EU rural development funding has transformed nearby sparsely populated villages such as Creggan and Culloville, with community centres hosting events from morning fitness classes to bingo in the evenings. “It was a real lifeline to the area,” said Mr Hearty. Brexit will spell the end of that funding.

    While locals in the predominantly Catholic village of Crossmaglen are sensitive to stirring political tensions within their border communities, they recognise that the damaging consequences of Brexit to the region makes the economic arguments for a united Ireland more compelling than ever before.
    “It has to be questioned, economically, for both the Republic and Northern Ireland, ” said Robbie McAllister, who runs an interior design business in the area. He has been in business for a decade and employs 10 staff, including several who live in the south. Forty per cent of his business comes from the Republic. Brexit has forced the Crossmaglen native to put a planned expansion of his business on hold.
    “It is going to segregate us even more. It is very hard to get away from the political debate, but the economic and political debate run side by side. You cannot break up the country,” he said.
    Irish unification
    Plans unveiled this week by Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin to publish a 12-point White Paper that could pave the way for Irish reunification were warmly welcomed in Crossmaglen this week.
    “Brexit is obviously going to accelerate talks for a united Ireland and of course it should,” said Pete Byrne, a local SDLP councillor whose family have a fourth-generation headstone business that carved many of the monuments and plaques in and around the village to Irish freedom and slain republicans.
    “It’s going to allow parties to put meat on the bones about the economic case for a united Ireland because you will have buy-in from the south, which you haven’t had in the last number of years.”
    Estate agent Michael McArdle runs a third-generation business in Crossmaglen that predates any border. The large proportion of Northern Irish exports heading to the Republic, amounting to two-thirds of all EU-bound exports, supports the case for an economic union, he says.
    “It would make sense for the whole lot to be an economic entity on its own. How that is going to work is up to the politicians,” he said.
    The situation might require innovative thinking on the part of politicians, both north and south, and many of the locals in south Armagh who spoke to The Irish Times believe that one compromise would involve the creation of a special designation or exemption for Northern Ireland, effectively pushing the EU-UK border to the Irish Sea, leaving customs checkpoints at the ports and airports.
    “The issue of a united Ireland and where that goes, we will leave that to the politicians. We do not want to stir up fears,” said Declan Fearon, spokesman for Border Communities Against Brexit and the owner of Fearon Brothers, a local kitchen maker established in 1979.
    “If the will is there, there should certainly be a way that the six counties can remain part of the European Union without diluting Unionists’ wishes to remain part of the Union.”
    Years of conflict
    Sitting in his Jonesborough office, about 20 kilometres east along the border from Crossmaglen, Fearon points out his back window to Faughill Mountain where an army border watchtower once stood. He recalls running his business during the bleak years of conflict: five-hour waits at customs in Dundalk for his staff heading south to do business, soldiers blowing craters on local border roads, army helicopters flying over the patchwork farmlands below his office, gun battles in the fields.
    “This border corridor is without doubt the eye of the storm with regards Brexit, not only in Ireland but in Europe. What people are very fearful of here is a slow border by stealth, even a soft border,” he said.

    “Who knows where that will end up. That can end up in the very worst of circumstances, back to where we were 25 years ago.”
    http://www.irishtimes.com/news/polit...tier-1.3014496

    Incidentally I know Concession Road pretty well and I've double-checked the odd time seeing an ambulance on it. And I'm certain I've seen a Garda car on it (or near it enough in any case that it had to traverse Armagh to get to where it was to pass me).
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  5. #343
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    'British government confirm that NI would retain EU membership as part of United Ireland': https://www.derrynow.com/news/britis...ireland/153146

    Quote Originally Posted by Derry Now
    SDLP Leader Colum Eastwood has welcomed confirmation from the British Brexit Secretary David Davis that Northern Ireland would retain EU membership as part of a united Ireland under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

    He said that SDLP negotiators have been pressing the British Government to concede this argument over the course of the last number of weeks.

    Mr Eastwood said: “In successive referenda, the people of Ireland have voted for a constitutional settlement in the North based on common membership of the European Union across this island. That was the basis of securing the consent and confidence of nationalism for the Good Friday Agreement.

    “The current British Government’s Brexit juggernaut threatens to smash through the fragile complexities of the Irish political dispensation.

    “Over the course of the last number of weeks, SDLP MPs and negotiators have pressed the British Government to concede that unlike any other part of these islands, we have an automatic route back into the European Union. The Principle of Consent and provisions for a Unity Referendum in the Good Friday Agreement allow people here to make the decision to join a sovereign united Ireland and, in doing so, rejoin the European Union.

    “It is welcome that the Brexit Secretary has now conceded that argument.

    “Brexit has shaken the tectonic plates of our constitutional landscape. People in Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU. The people of Ireland voted for the Good Friday Agreement underpinned by Europe. If that context is to be ripped apart and our political foundations thrown into flux, then the time will be right for people here to begin to explore our constitutional future.”
    Technically, wouldn't a decision on this be the EU's prerogative? An apparent admission from UK ministers doesn't mean a huge deal.

    Also, the potential smooth transition (for a post-Brexit north of Ireland back into the EU) of which Eastwood speaks would rest upon Irish re-unification entailing the north being subsumed by the already-existing 26-county republic. If, on the other hand, a new all-island state was born out of a new constitution, I assume that new entity would have to apply for EU membership as a whole as the prior 26-county republic would no longer constitutionally exist. This is a potential practical problem as I'm not convinced that unionists would feel content with being subsumed by the current 26-county state. I feel a new constitutional arrangement (with new governing bodies and symbols) would be required to ensure they feel as welcome and equal participants in any all-island state.

  6. #344
    Coach BonnieShels's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DannyInvincible View Post
    'British government confirm that NI would retain EU membership as part of United Ireland': https://www.derrynow.com/news/britis...ireland/153146

    Technically, wouldn't a decision on this be the EU's prerogative? An apparent admission from UK ministers doesn't mean a huge deal.

    Also, the potential smooth transition (for a post-Brexit north of Ireland back into the EU) of which Eastwood speaks would entail Irish re-unification meaning the north being subsumed by the already-existing 26-county republic. If, on the other hand, a new all-island state was born out of a new constitution, I assume that new entity would have to apply for EU membership as a whole as the prior 26-county republic would no longer constitutionally exist. This is a problem as I'm not convinced that unionists would feel content with being subsumed by the current 26-county state. I feel a new constitutional arrangement would be required to ensure they feel as welcome and equal participants in any all-island state.
    I've discussed somewhere on here about the technicalities of that. The north would join the south in a similar fashion as east Germany joined west.
    There is absolutely no way in hell that an succeeding reunified nation will not be considered a "successor nation" to the current EU-member republic. It's barely worth discussing at this stage.

    A new constitutional arrangement can be created in tandem with EU membership. There is absolutely no reason that reunification would mean we would actually kick us out of the club.

    The examples alone that exist (off the top of my head):

    Germany- West German and the eastern Lander joining together into the EC.

    France- The French Fourth Republic ceased to exist in 1958 and was replaced by the Fifth. The ECSC came into being in 1950 and was replaced by the EEC etc with the Treaty of Rome in 1957.

    Netherlands- This is complicated: but the Dutch Kingdom enlarged to include parts of the Netherlands Antilles as Municipalities of the Dutch State and other Antilles states and Aruba as constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Also there's the example of Suriname becoming a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1954 and then "achieving" independence in 1975.


    ---

    There are ways and means to effect this change and Unionist objection to any such reunification arrangement is a bit premature. Whatever constitutional arrangement comes out of reunification will not come to the detriment of our EU membership and is in fact a rather silly discussion in the context of where we're at at present.

    If we were to change our constitution before reunification would you consider us a different State to the one that currently exists? hardly.
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  8. #345
    Capped Player DannyInvincible's Avatar
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    In light of the ANC statement expressing sympathy to SF upon McGuinness' death, this provides fascinating insight into the anti-Apartheid struggle's Irish link: https://ansionnachfionn.com/2017/03/...he-ira-and-mk/

    Quote Originally Posted by An Sionnach Fionn
    A number of readers have asked for some background details explaining the close relationship between the African National Congress and Sinn Féin following on from the ANC’s sympathetic statement last week noting the passing of “comrade” Martin McGuinness. While the political wings of the two movements have long professed public support for each other, particularly during the transition from White minority rule on the one hand and the development of the peace process on the other, the co-operation between their respective military wings was at times equally as close. By the late 1970s and early ‘80s selected members of uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the ANC’s armed grouping, were receiving guerrilla training in Ireland, Angola and South Africa from experienced volunteers of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). This resulted in a number of attacks against the apartheid regime in Pretoria, at least one involving the active participation of the IRA. These operations are described in several sources, notably the unfinished autobiography of Kader Asmal, founder of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement (IAAM) and a senior minister from 1992 to 2004 in the first ANC-led democratic government.

    An extract from “Kader Asmal: Politics in My Blood: a Memoir” by Kader Asmal and Adrian Hadland, with Moira Levy (Jacana Media, 2011).

    In the late 1970s, I was asked if it was possible to arrange military training for some MK combatants. I wanted very much to undertake this task, but it was a delicate one because it would of necessity involve the IRA. None of us wished to place the ANC office in London in any jeopardy nor fuel the allegations of connivance between the ANC and IRA.

    I went to see the general secretary of the Communist Party of Ireland, Michael O’Riordan, who was a man of great integrity and whom I trusted to keep secret the information at his disposal. He in turn contacted Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin, and it was arranged that two military experts would come to Dublin to meet two MK personnel and take them to a safe place for two weeks of intensive training. On the date arranged I was to be away, so I instructed Louise [Asmal’s wife and an active anti-apartheid activist] as to what she was to say when the MK men rang. In standard secret-service style, nothing was to be written down, and everything had to be remembered.

    …we did arrange a successful meeting, the training was conducted, and I believe the expertise the MK cadres obtained was duly imparted to others in the ANC camps in Angola.

    Then, on 1 June 1980, South Africa was shocked by one of the most daring and audacious acts of military insurgency in the struggle against apartheid. On that day the country’s major oil refinery plant in the town of Sasolburg was bombed by explosives. Black smoke billowed over the Highveld. Every newspaper and television station carried pictures, footage and stories of the attack. And, while the damage to the refinery was, according to the apartheid regime, relatively superficial, the propaganda value and its effect on the morale of the liberation movement were inestimable.

    Yet only Louise and I knew that the attack on Sasolburg was the result of reconnaissance carried out by members of the IRA. I had again been approached by the MK High Command, who wanted us to find two people to conduct a reconnaissance operation and report back on the feasibility of attacking Sasol, South Africa’s major oil refinery, vital to the maintenance of the apartheid state. Located on the Vaal River, Sasol was a perfect target. It was highly strategic but relatively undefended. There were also few people wandering about the plant at night, so the chances of inflicting civilian casualties were small.

    I undertook this task quite separately from the IAAM [Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement]. This was partly to protect the organisation and partly for reasons of security. We knew too that right-wing British intelligence services and right-wing British media would use the information to undermine the ANC and the broad Anti-Apartheid Movement. Once again I arranged the task with Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin, through the intermediation of Michael O’Riordan. Though I no longer recall the names of the persons who volunteered, if indeed I ever knew them, they laid the ground for one of the most dramatic operations carried out by MK personnel.

    It was evident to all of us that the regime had suffered a demonstrable loss and embarrassment. Yet only Louise and I knew that the attack on Sasolburg was the result of reconnaissance carried out by members of the IRA. At the time the ANC accepted responsibility for the coup and much later the three active participants, all MK cadres, applied for and obtained amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

    Below is one of the earliest academic mentions of the MK and IRA connection by professor Stephen Ellis in “Comrades Against Apartheid. The ANC and the South African Communist Party in Exile”, with with Tsepo Sechaba (Indiana University Press, 1992):

    Some of those trained at Fundo were also taken for further specialised instruction by members of the Irish Republican Army working out of an anonymous apartment building in Luanda [capital of Angola]. The IRA men were experts in the construction of bombs and booby-traps, and passed on their know-how to ANC specialists, including Obadi.

    The IRA connection, which began in late 1978, has always been one of the ANC’s most closely-guarded secrets. It is not clear what later cooperation there may have been between the two organisations, although some British sources’ were to claim in the late 1980s that it continued, and that officials of the ANC’s Military Intelligence department had visited the IRA in Northern Ireland.

    This follow-up publication gives more detail in “External Mission: The ANC in Exile, 1960-1990” by Stephen Ellis (Oxford University Press, 2013)

    The bulk of the ANC’S army now being based in Angola, in 1979 Ronnie Kasrils [later Chief of MK Intelligence] signed a secret agreement on behalf of the ANC with the chief of military counterintelligence of the Cuban forces in Angola on intelligence sharing and on provision for training by Cuban personnel In Maputo. The ANC was able to establish facilities from which it could organise infiltrations directly into South Africa. The city was home to the elite special operations unit led by Slovo [Joe Slovo, senior MK commander]. Having previously specialised in running operations from London, using white cadres especially, Slovo was now closer to his target and able to send people in by land. For work of this type, the ANC enlisted the help of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), at that time perhaps the world’s most sophisticated urban guerrilla force. The ANC’s representative in Ireland made contact with the IRA via the Irish Communist Party which put him in touch with the Sinn Fein politician Gerry Adams, an extraordinary development in view of the Irish Communist Party’s distrust of the Provisional IRA.

    In due course, IRA men set up a bomb-making school at a safe house in Luanda. The IRA connection was one of the ANC’s most closely guarded secrets, although rumours reached the ears of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, which in 1977 reported that ANC guerrillas were being trained ‘by a powerful group of IRA experts who have made their appearance in Tanzania since the middle of March in order to direct a training programme’. This information apparently originated with a Rhodesian source – oddly enough since the ANC/IRA collaboration actually started only in 1978.

    On 1 June 1980, the MK special operations unit launched a spectacular attack on a Sasol facility in South Africa that caused millions of rands in damage and underlined South Africa’s dependence on imported oil, then a matter of great sensitivity due to the recent revolution in Iran, the country’s leading supplier. The sabotage team was led by Motso Mokqabudi, who had trained in rocketry in the USSR before honing his bomb-making skills with the IRA men Luanda. South African intelligence soon learned the identities of Sasol saboteurs…

    During this same period, and for many years thereafter, the United Kingdom strongly opposed international sanctions against South Africa, particularly under the administration of the right-wing prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, and did much to undermine the UN-led boycott. The Conservative leader was deeply hostile to the ANC, as was her party more generally, dismissing it as late as 1987 as a “a typical terrorist organisation“. Meanwhile, from 1986 onward the British intelligence services, notably the Intelligence Corps (Int Corps) and Security Service (SS or MI5), coordinated contacts between pro-British or loyalist terrorist factions in the UK-administered north-east of Ireland and agents for the National Intelligence Service (NIS) under P. W. Botha’s apartheid government in South Africa. This resulted in at least one large consignment of weapons and explosives being smuggled into the Six Counties from the Lebanon, the operation overseen by Brian Nelson, a British Army agent and a senior member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the legal British terror grouping.
    And here's Gerry Adams participating in the 8-man guard of honour at Mandela's funeral:


  9. #346
    Capped Player DannyInvincible's Avatar
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    Tommy McKearney's analysis of Martin McGuinness' legacy for Jacobin makes for an interesting read; it explores the oppressive context of McGuinness' early life and actions whilst criticising the "bourgeois" direction of his later politics: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/03/m...in-republican/

    Quote Originally Posted by Tommy McKearney
    ...

    Martin McGuinness was born into an Ireland partitioned a mere three decades earlier by the British Empire. In order to retain what was effectively a garrison on its neighboring island, governments in London turned a blind eye to the reactionary and undemocratic practices of its allies in Northern Ireland. Few places experienced the effects of this cynical arrangement more acutely than Derry, the city in which McGuinness grew up.

    Local government in his hometown was run by the Unionist-controlled Londonderry Corporation, which secured majorities by shamelessly gerrymandering council wards. The corporation gave priority to unionist communities when allocating housing and public-sector employment, and flaunted its power with provocative pageantry.

    The Belfast-based parliament in Stormont worsened this situation further still: pursuing a discriminatory agenda which deprived Derry of Northern Ireland’s second university, it steered investment away from what was an unemployment black hole and even refused to extend the cross-country dual carriageway to the city.

    After decades of structural discrimination maintained by an authoritarian police state, Martin McGuinness was among those who stood up to the regime and demanded reform. The movement he joined employed campaign tactics inspired by American civil rights activists — and was met with similar repression.

    It was in his hometown of Derry that the sectarian police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), violently attacked a peaceful civil rights march on October 5, 1968, injuring many demonstrators, including a number of elected representatives. A few months later, following a civil rights demonstration, an RUC riot squad invaded a private house and bludgeoned to death a Catholic man as he sat watching TV. This raw brutality set the tone for the state’s response to a peaceful campaign for democratic rights.

    The Northern Irish government made it clear from the outset that it was determined to use its heavily armed police force to retain control rather than embark on a program of fundamental reform that might have averted much of the subsequent violence. In the crucially important year of 1969, RUC officers were responsible for eight of the sixteen deaths arising from the political conflict. None of the victims were armed, and one — a nine-year-old boy — was asleep in his bed when struck by a police bullet.

    As so often happens when repression is substituted for democratic consent, the response was violent resistance. The state created the conditions for a confrontation that would last for over two decades. Like many young people of his generation in the north of Ireland, Martin McGuinness was moved by these circumstances to resist and joined the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

    Historians and academics will long debate whether it would have been possible to avoid the years of bloodshed that afflicted the northern part of Ireland through the final twenty-five years of the twentieth century. Even many opponents of British state involvement in Northern Ireland have raised questions over the efficacy of the IRA campaign.

    However, no substantive evidence exists to suggest that northern Irish unionism, a product of colonial expansion and an heir to the arrogance of British imperialism, would have succumbed to enlightenment. It remained stubborn in its refusal to grant reforms, even the kind achieved in recent years, for decades when concessions could have prevented escalations.

    ...

    Due to his stature within the IRA, McGuinness’s support for the organization’s ceasefire in 1994 was crucial in persuading many Irish republicans to endorse the “new departure” from military to political strategy. The Irish and British establishment have often framed this decision as a Pauline conversion, spinning it as a shift from anti–state violence to a state-approved peace.

    This narrative is one left-wingers should avoid. It overlooks the fact that Martin McGuinness was part of a leadership that took a conscious decision to change tactics. Tactical shifts are the prerogative of all political movements. To paraphrase von Clausewitz, politics for Sinn Féin was the continuation of the war by other means.

    In the years following the IRA ceasefire, McGuinness played a leading role during Good Friday Agreement negotiations. Thereafter, he figured prominently in the bartering that brought about the decommissioning of weapons, support for a new police force, and the dissolution of the IRA. By doing so, he facilitated the convening of a local devolved administration in 2007, when to the astonishment of many, he became Ian Paisley’s deputy first minister, a position he held until his resignation earlier this year.

    Bringing to an end an armed conflict that had reached a stalemate undoubtedly brought benefits not only to the IRA’s political wing, Sinn Féin, but also to the northern Irish people. It is beyond question that Martin McGuinness played a significant part in facilitating this transformation. Nevertheless — and contrary to the glowing commendations heaped upon him by such dubious characters as Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Theresa May — his role in the politics of the peace settlement deserves analysis.

    When, earlier this year, Martin McGuinness resigned his position as Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister, he didn’t just precipitate an end to devolved government in the region. His departure also highlighted many of his party’s failings. Ten years after entering an administrative arrangement that was virtually a coalition with the reactionary Democratic Unionist Party, it is difficult to identify any meaningful change to the underlying politics of the six counties.

    As leader of Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland, Martin McGuinness epitomized the centrist and oftentimes opportunistic policies of a party that has leaned on soundbites to mask its lack of program. In the north, Sinn Féin has abandoned pretenses to be socialist and failed to analyze the structures and class composition of the state.

    Sinn Féin has pursued a contradictory twin-track approach of expanding its electoral base while simultaneously straining in an attempt to improve community relations. The aim was, it seemed, to make the political institutions work as if in a normal parliamentary democracy. McGuinness took the lead in this process and broke with prominent Irish republican traditions — attending ceremonies commemorating British Army war dead, publicly condemning dissenting republicans, and, most strikingly, shaking hands with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth.

    But Sinn Féin’s politics in the north often appeared to draw on the influences of Bill Clinton’s Third Way: reorienting to the Catholic middle class from the party’s traditional working-class base. To achieve this, it was forced to adopt policies in keeping with bourgeois aspirations. This meant accepting the expansion of the private rented sector rather than insisting on a public housing program, tolerating anti-union legislation, promoting free-market initiatives, and, latterly, voicing strong support for the European Union.

    Even in areas such as secular education, which has long been deemed within the remit of civic republicanism, the party backpedaled rather than confront the Catholic Church.

    While this moderate strategy has reaped rewards for Sinn Féin in terms of political power, its Achilles heel was something that, in reality, should have been obvious to the party hierarchy: the intransigence of the unionist political class. Not even such a prolonged period of peace has produced a conciliatory attitude from political unionism. Consequently, despite their olive branches, debate in Northern Ireland has not moved beyond community division. Unfortunately, this must rank as a major failing of McGuinness’s leadership.

    ...

    While it is unwise to act as a prophet of doom, Northern Ireland has a poor record of handling fundamental change. As the Unionist majority declines, questions will inevitably arise as to what the future can hold for that community. At that point in time, the poverty of the McGuinness legacy in government will be most obvious. Standing on a nebulous manifesto of equality, respect, and integrity (in the United States this type of politics would be described as promoting motherhood and apple pie), his party offered little by way of security in their working lives or material conditions to a disoriented unionist community.

    In many ways it would be unfortunate if this were to be how Martin McGuinness was remembered. He took a leading role in a generation of Irish republicans that courageously engaged with the forces of the British state and by doing so, irreversibly altered the political dynamic not only in the north of Ireland but across the entire island.

    Nevertheless, as time goes by and the heroic memories of the most recent insurrection fade, it will be for his period as deputy first minister that he will be remembered. Martin McGuinness was a fighter against injustice, a man who contributed enormously to peace in Northern Ireland. But in the final analysis he failed to steer that peace in the direction of more fundamental change, and that reality will remain with us after his passing.

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    PMQs live and I turned on when Danny Kinahan had his Question:

    http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index...0&out=12:03:00

    "Can I ask the PM, that in the extremely improbable event that a Border Poll does take place during her premiership, that her Govt will fully support any 'Remain' campaign, just as the Govt have done both in regard of the EU and Scotland?" [paraphrased]
    12:00

    "...we are of course within that, fully committed that the unique interests of NI are protected and advanced as we establish are negotiating position; and our position has always been clear that we support the Belfast Agreement including the principle of consent, that NI's constitutional position is a matter for the people of NI to determine. But as our manifesto made clear, we have a preference that NI should remain part of the UK and we will never be neutral in expressing our support for that. And that's because I believe fundamentally in the strength of our Union..."
    12:02

    ---

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    Capped Player DannyInvincible's Avatar
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    This afternoon's 'Saturday with Claire Byrne' on RTÉ Radio One was broadcast live from the Oriel Centre Gaol in Dundalk and featured a discussion between Jeffrey Donaldson, Gerry Adams, Charlie Flanagan, Stephen Donnelly, George Lee and Verona Murphy (of the Irish Road Haulage Association) on whether Brexit will lead to a united Ireland and how it will impact upon the border, trade and the economic and political future of the country.

    The Spanish government's prospective veto over any UK-EU deal if it isn't satisfied with Gibraltar's future status also came up in discussion and Flanagan was rightly asked why the Irish government hasn't similarly demanded and secured a veto so as to ensure it will have decisive influence over the post-Brexit status of the north of Ireland.

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    Evening all, sorry for delay in reply to points below.

    I was at the Global Green Parties Conference in Liverpool this weekend. One of the highlights of which was a fringe comparing the peace processes in NI and Cyprus. You lot would have enjoyed it

    Quote Originally Posted by DannyInvincible
    Claire Byrne's RTE Show...on whether Brexit will lead to a united Ireland and how it will impact upon the border, trade and the economic and political future of the country...Flanagan was rightly asked why the Irish government hasn't similarly demanded and secured a veto so as to ensure it will have decisive influence over the post-Brexit status of the north of Ireland
    Will listen to that, thanks. Meantime whatever CF said I suspect his Government doesn't see advantage in putting the boot into the Brits at this stage?

    Quote Originally Posted by Danny Kinahan, paraphrased
    [will] her Govt will fully support any 'Remain' campaign, just as the Govt have done both in regard of the EU and Scotland?
    It's all a bit moot because there won't be a single-question referendum (as opposed to an election) for years yet.

    Quote Originally Posted by DI
    Tommy McKearney... explores the oppressive context of McGuinness' early life and actions whilst criticising the "bourgeois" direction of his later politics
    Unsurprisingly, I don't recognise the late Marty as some sort of cross between Gandhi and Oliver Twist. I was at primary school in An Loiste Nua (one of the poorest areas in NI) in the late 60s. While it quite tough, nobody starved and not everyone became a gunman...although I vaguely remember getting those half-pint bottles of chocomilk as we were a deprived area

    Quote Originally Posted by BS
    Whatever constitutional arrangement comes out of reunification will not come to the detriment of our EU membership and is in fact a rather silly discussion in the context of where we're at at present
    It's a premature discussion because (as I mentioned above), we can be confident that Unionists won't support Irish Unity, if at all, for years yet. But we can't necessarily be confident about what form the EU will take at that point.

    Quote Originally Posted by DI
    If, on the other hand, a new all-island state was born out of a new constitution, I assume that new entity would have to apply for EU membership as a whole as the prior 26-county republic would no longer constitutionally exist. This is a potential practical problem as I'm not convinced that unionists would feel content with being subsumed by the current 26-county state. I feel a new constitutional arrangement (with new governing bodies and symbols) would be required to ensure they feel as welcome and equal participants in any all-island state
    I doubt you need you worry too much about this. Unionists who are prepared to vote for a UI won't be that bothered if it's in a second, third or umpteenth Republic. While those who aren't will remain implacably anti regardless of what symbols you use.

    My own suggested UI flag is available on a fair use basis

    Quote Originally Posted by DI
    another reminder of just how far removed the minds of those in Britain are from Ireland and Irish affairs. They reside in a different political universe
    Sorry, little sympathy if you choose to watch inane bearpit sh*te that is BBC Question Time

    Why on Earth would you expect people in rural north Wales to have more than a passing interest in Marty's career as either paramilitary hardman 30 years ago or latterly joining running the equivalent of Glamorgan County Council? Most people in Caernarfon couldn't name their own Council leaders, let alone ours.

    Quote Originally Posted by BacksToTheWall
    The problems in 1960s NI weren't vague or abstract. They were pronounced and intolerable...Nationalism didn't start with the intention of violence
    I specified that the vague abstracts referred to lack of inclusivity, validity, parity and the like. I just don't believe that the lack of an Irish Language Act, say, is intolerable for anyone bar a few obsessive Shinners.

    Nationalism (OK, Nationalist paramilitarism) CONTINUED with violence for 30 years despite the addressing of specific grienvances and the acceptance by anybody half-wise that the Brits and Unionists weren't going to give in. They acted the cnut for a generation, in other words. Of course so did others, but Nationalism needs to recognise its own big role.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kevin Meagher
    A UI is inevitable
    In briefly reviewing KM's book I said that he treated Unionism as a whole as bogeyman, ciphers etc. My words rather than his, but I think fair (even if it's an equally fair criticism given that they keep electing Foster, Allister etc. and allow the Orange Order and UDA to speak for them). The thing is though that if Meagher's grandiose claim is to come true somebody will have to change their attitudes. Just talking to grotesques won't help.
    Last edited by Gather round; 02/04/2017 at 6:47 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gather round View Post
    Will listen to that, thanks. Meantime whatever CF said I suspect his Government doesn't see advantage in putting the boot into the Brits at this stage?
    Probably not; kowtowing is hardly novel conduct for the likes of Flanagan. He just waffled on about the peace process being of "paramount importance" (No sh*t, Sherlock!) and being confident that he has "understanding, appreciation and acknowledgement of the peace process" from his foreign ministerial colleagues, but that's nowhere near the same thing as having any formal guarantees on anything, never mind having a prospective veto over the future status of the north or the form the border may take.

    Donaldson was discernibly on the ropes throughout and deflected accordingly.

    Sorry, little sympathy if you choose to watch inane bearpit sh*te that is BBC Question Time
    Heh, I gave up on expecting much from 'Question Time' a good while ago. My brother told me that my sister had mentioned to him that they'd devoted a question to McGuinness, so I was merely curious to see the direction the discussion took. I was underwhelmed, but not surprised.

    Why on Earth would you expect people in rural north Wales to have more than a passing interest in Marty's career as either paramilitary hardman 30 years ago or latterly joining running the equivalent of Glamorgan County Council? Most people in Caernarfon couldn't name their own Council leaders, let alone ours.
    Exactly, so why select it as a topic for discussion between the ignorant and ill/half-informed?

    Nationalism (OK, Nationalist paramilitarism) CONTINUED with violence for 30 years despite the addressing of specific grienvances and the acceptance by anybody half-wise that the Brits and Unionists weren't going to give in. They acted the cnut for a generation, in other words. Of course so did others, but Nationalism needs to recognise its own big role.
    I think (former) physical force republicans have always acknowledged their role in the conflict. You may well disagree, but, in my opinion, it's the British state and proponents of the discriminatory unionist regime (that provoked and actively participated in conflict, using both "lawful" and unlawful methods of engagement) who remain in denial of their (very significant) roles and responsibilities.

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    Quote Originally Posted by DI
    why select it as a topic for discussion between the ignorant and ill/half-informed?
    If we're agreed it's a bearpit/ light entertainment show with little pretence at balanced politics, does it really matter which questions get the superficial treatment? Marty as a human interest story/ hate figure (many people in Britain have a bias one way or the another) is easier TV than a discussion on World Trade rules, for example.

    I think (former) physical force republicans have always acknowledged their role in the conflict...it's the British state and proponents of the discriminatory unionist regime...who remain in denial of their (very significant) roles and responsibilities
    See this thread and others passim- I think all three (Brits, Unionists, Nationalists) are in the Egyptian river long term. Marty and Gerry fibbing about their IRA roles is just the starkest example.
    Last edited by Gather round; 03/04/2017 at 9:24 AM.

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    More pompous one-eyed bitter whataboutery!!

    Someone was out the wrong side of the bed today, may their higher power help the Greens if this is in any way indicative of their intolerance....

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    Capped Player DannyInvincible's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gather round View Post
    I doubt you need you worry too much about this. Unionists who are prepared to vote for a UI won't be that bothered if it's in a second, third or umpteenth Republic. While those who aren't will remain implacably anti regardless of what symbols you use.
    I see Sinn Féin's Matt Carthy penned a piece, published by the Irish Times, that dealt with the task of persuading unionists to embrace the idea of Irish unity: http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/si...land-1.3036229

    Quote Originally Posted by Matt Carthy
    Last January, Sinn Féin held the first in a series of united Ireland conferences in Dublin’s Mansion House.

    Among the excellent presentations was a thought-provoking contribution from Belfast political commentator Alex Kane.

    A former director of communications for the Ulster Unionist Party Kane is in his own words “an unashamed, unambiguous, unembarrassed unionist”.

    Kane wasn’t in the business of providing comfort to the Dublin audience and made the case that, in spite of mounting evidence of the economic benefits of unity, most unionists would vote against it on the basis of identity. Only 15 per cent to 20 per cent of unionists, Kane feels, are open to persuasion.

    That people would vote against their own economic interests is hardly a novel revelation, but the issue of identity is one that those advocating a united Ireland must address.

    ...

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  18. #354
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    Quote Originally Posted by DannyInvincible View Post
    I see Sinn Féin's Matt Carthy penned a piece, published by the Irish Times, that dealt with the task of persuading unionists to embrace the idea of Irish unity: http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/si...land-1.3036229
    I agree there's a need for compromise, new symbols etc. My suggested flag design is available for free use, we can have a tribute to Marty as notional anthem (Fisherman's Blue?) and obviously there'll have to be a new name. Take the 'Nprthern' from our handle and the 'Ireland' from yours...

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    4 Provinces Flag and 'A Nation Once Again'.
    Nothing 'sectarian' about either!!

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    Capped Player DannyInvincible's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gather round View Post
    I agree there's a need for compromise, new symbols etc. My suggested flag design is available for free use,
    Have you posted this before? Remind me; what does it look like?

    we can have a tribute to Marty as notional anthem (Fisherman's Blue?)
    Is that an innocent reference to what was Martin's favourite hobby or is it a nod to something altogether more sinister; the conspiracy theories of "Martin Ingram" (Ian Hurst) that allege McGuinness was a British agent whose code-name was "Fisherman"?

    Here's an alternative view on Hurst's allegations generally: https://ansionnachfionn.com/2017/04/...peace-process/

    Meanwhile, Ed Moloney here refers to a "mutual de-escalation plan [agreed between the IRA in Derry (McGuinness) and the British army] modelled on Cold War diplomacy to reduce the possibility of nuclear war [that] was put forward by two English-born Quakers, John and Diana Lampen, who were associated with a branch of the 1976 Peace People in Derry, called the Peace and Reconciliation Group". In his view, the Coshquin "human proxy bomb" attack may have been a means of realising some sort of de-escalation process (as far as those in the IRA who favoured the electoral politics route (instead of continued physical force) and who knew about the Coshquin attack in advance were concerned; I'm not suggesting the Lampen's colluded in the planning of the attack), or at least I think that's what Moloney is alluding to when he asks the following:

    Quote Originally Posted by Ed Moloney
    Why did the IRA adopt a tactic so barbaric that it was bound to be roundly criticised and condemned not just by the British and the Unionists – and the world at large – but by the community from which the IRA derived its support and succour.

    More to the point why did Martin McGuinness, an intelligent and well-informed individual, give the go-ahead to the tactic? He, of all people, must have known how his own people would have greeted a tactic which involved tying a humble short-order cook to the driver’s seat of a van packed with deadly explosives and wired to detonate if, as he did, Patsy Gillespie managed to free himself and open the driver’s door.

    ...

    But what of Martin McGuinness’ motives in authorising the ‘human bombs’? That, alas, is an enigma that may never be unraveled.
    For Wikipedia summarises Moloney's explanatory theory for the Coshquin attack (elaborated upon in A Secret History of the IRA) as follows:

    Quote Originally Posted by Wikipedia
    The 'proxy bombs' of October 1990 caused widespread outrage from everyone, especially among the Catholic community, the Catholic Church, and even among some IRA supporters, eventually forcing the IRA to drop the tactic.[24] According to journalist and author Ed Moloney, "as an operation calculated to undermine the IRA's armed struggle, alienate even its most loyal supporters and damage Sinn Féin politically, it had no equal."[25]

    Moloney has suggested that the tactic may have been calculated to weaken the position of alleged "hawks" in republicanism—those who favoured armed action over electoral politics. At the same time Moloney argues that the widespread public revulsion would have strengthened the position of those in the IRA such as Gerry Adams who were considering how republicanism could abandon violence and focus on electoral politics. Peter Taylor wrote of the proxy bombs that, by such actions and the revulsion they caused in the community, IRA hardliners inadvertently strengthened the hand of those within the republican movement who argued that an alternative to armed struggle had to be found.[26]
    Of course, according to Hurst's claims, the idea for the attack came from within British intelligence and was suggested to McGuinness by an MI6 handler.

    and obviously there'll have to be a new name. Take the 'Nprthern' from our handle and the 'Ireland' from yours...
    Ha!

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    My reference to Marty's hobby was entirely innocent (even if the 'blue' bit was tasteless, apologies). Can't summon much interest in the conspiracies I'm afraid.
    Last edited by Gather round; 05/04/2017 at 5:04 PM.

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    You mean that would undermine some of your paranoia re.Marty.

    The BBC Spotlight programme on him just up North was a fair summary I thought.
    Most interesting was Paisley Junior and Flegory Campbell's take, the former was a LOT more conciliatory than the latter.
    Certain unionists could learn much.

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    Coach BonnieShels's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gather round View Post


    My reference to Marty's hobby was entirely innocent (even if the 'blue' bit was tasteless, apologies). Can't summon much interest in the conspiracies I'm afraid.
    The hack of that flag.

    Nothing wrong with the Four provinces or the Patrick's Saltire. No need for any embellishments.
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    Quote Originally Posted by BonnieShels View Post
    No need for any embellishments
    I'm merely saving an army of expensive designers the trouble of producing something that people can't agree on. As you know, a horse designed by committee would be...a camel

    If there's no need for change, why don't you prefer to stick with the tric?

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