The Flag Issue/Cheist an Bratach/The Fleg Prooblum

[Gather round]

Sylvia Hermon a Leftie?? isn't she the posh sounding one from Bangor which is supposedly upmarket? also her husband was RUC chief constable back in the 80's sounds always thought she was more of a big house unionist type tbh

'Blairite' more than 'Leftie' I think. She and Jack Hermon both grew up on small farms actually.

NI is a joke of a place like the 'fleg' carry on has really brought that home to me too many politically Illiterate spide (chav) morons running about the place its embarrassing and I don't think this place can ever get away from the sectarian/political divide especially since most people with a bit of sense and education leave NI its just a bit of a headf**k trying to deal with stuff like this and the fact that the job market is so poor doesn't exactly help either

Still, enjoy the game. 2-1 with Big Chicken netting a nugget. 1730 on Sky for all you neutrals

[DannyInvincible]

Some bizarre comments from Frazer in an interview here: http://www.universitytimes.ie/2013/0...ook-our-flegs/

You have been quoted in your capacity as spokesperson for the Ulster People’s Forum as calling for a return to direct rule. What was the idea behind that?

Our own government has failed us. Basically, something is not working. They will say that under direct rule it would be worse. Well if it is worse at least we can’t be blamed for voting for it.

...

When people argue that the Union Flag has been taken down by democratic means, you disagree with that?

Yes, I disagree with that because basically what has happened is that over the years the DUP, and before that the Unionist Party, built up their own wee empires in places such as Castlereagh. They were happy to take power away from Belfast council and move it to Castlereagh council. Castlereagh should come under Belfast council boundaries.

...

Do you have any idea when the [Dublin] protest will go ahead?

To be honest with you I was supposed to get back to them [the guards] this week but I’ve been so busy that I haven’t. So, as soon as. As soon as it suits the guards, we will go ahead with it. There was no point in pushing on with that… To be honest with you, if it wasn’t for constitutional reasons I would put the guards in charge of policing up here. Only that wouldn’t go down too well. It’s their approach. There’s no political policing with the guards, as far as I see it.

...

What agreement? The Good Friday Agreement?

Yes. We were told that that was it, that we were part of the United Kingdom. We weren’t told that there were going to be more changes… Or a continuous erosion of our culture, of our Britishness…

Do you think that increasing poverty and unemployment have created a climate of boredom and restlessness that has caused a return to violence?

To be truthful, it hasn’t caused as much harm as the fraud that is going on in within government departments in the North that are run and controlled by Sinn Féin IRA. Hundreds of millions are going missing… Because of the actions of ministers…

Can you give me an example of money going missing?

Yes. The Land Registry… I’ve got the officer I reported it to a number of years ago, and the documentation. One of them was a senior IRA man. As a matter of fact, three of them were senior IRA men, who had defrauded millions. If they had acted then, not only would they have saved the country millions, they wouldn’t have caused a fine of 70 million from Europe. But it was not in the public interest to follow it up. It’s the same with this horsemeat. We have it on public record that we raised that five years ago.

About horsemeat?

Yes.

Who raised this?

The victims.

FAIR?

Yes. And I can introduce you to the investigating officer that I reported it to.

Why do think it didn’t come out then?

Because senior IRA men were involved in it.

The IRA were involved with putting horsemeat into beef products?

Yes.

Why would they do that?

To make money. It’s the same with cows that have to be sold within a certain number of months after they’re born. Basically old fat cows that are 30 months old have been put into the food chain because the republicans have the means of getting it in. And a blind eye has been turned to it. This is the kind of thing that’s going on that we’re sick of… There is a blind eye being turned to so much fraud so that they don’t upset the peace process. That is what is creating the problems here.

[BonnieShels]

If there are no further questions. Yes.

[DannyInvincible]

Makes a change from Ulster saying 'no', I guess.

[DannyInvincible]

Still, enjoy the game. 2-1 with Big Chicken netting a nugget. 1730 on Sky for all you neutrals

Nightmare last few minutes for yous. Who's the commentator pronouncing Ronan Scannell's surname as the almost-exotic "scan-ell", ha?

[Keen2win]

Some bizarre comments from Frazer in an interview here: http://www.universitytimes.ie/2013/0...ook-our-flegs/

Friend of mine wrote that here in Trinners!

Some craic

[The Fly]

Some bizarre comments from Frazer in an interview here: http://www.universitytimes.ie/2013/0...ook-our-flegs/

You have been quoted in your capacity as spokesperson for the Ulster People’s Forum as calling for a return to direct rule. What was the idea behind that?

Our own government has failed us. Basically, something is not working. They will say that under direct rule it would be worse. Well if it is worse at least we can’t be blamed for voting for it.

...

When people argue that the Union Flag has been taken down by democratic means, you disagree with that?

Yes, I disagree with that because basically what has happened is that over the years the DUP, and before that the Unionist Party, built up their own wee empires in places such as Castlereagh. They were happy to take power away from Belfast council and move it to Castlereagh council. Castlereagh should come under Belfast council boundaries.

...

Do you have any idea when the [Dublin] protest will go ahead?

To be honest with you I was supposed to get back to them [the guards] this week but I’ve been so busy that I haven’t. So, as soon as. As soon as it suits the guards, we will go ahead with it. There was no point in pushing on with that… To be honest with you, if it wasn’t for constitutional reasons I would put the guards in charge of policing up here. Only that wouldn’t go down too well. It’s their approach. There’s no political policing with the guards, as far as I see it.

...

What agreement? The Good Friday Agreement?

Yes. We were told that that was it, that we were part of the United Kingdom. We weren’t told that there were going to be more changes… Or a continuous erosion of our culture, of our Britishness…

Do you think that increasing poverty and unemployment have created a climate of boredom and restlessness that has caused a return to violence?

To be truthful, it hasn’t caused as much harm as the fraud that is going on in within government departments in the North that are run and controlled by Sinn Féin IRA. Hundreds of millions are going missing… Because of the actions of ministers…

Can you give me an example of money going missing?

Yes. The Land Registry… I’ve got the officer I reported it to a number of years ago, and the documentation. One of them was a senior IRA man. As a matter of fact, three of them were senior IRA men, who had defrauded millions. If they had acted then, not only would they have saved the country millions, they wouldn’t have caused a fine of 70 million from Europe. But it was not in the public interest to follow it up. It’s the same with this horsemeat. We have it on public record that we raised that five years ago.

About horsemeat?

Yes.

Who raised this?

The victims.

FAIR?

Yes. And I can introduce you to the investigating officer that I reported it to.

Why do think it didn’t come out then?

Because senior IRA men were involved in it.

The IRA were involved with putting horsemeat into beef products?

Yes.

Why would they do that?

To make money. It’s the same with cows that have to be sold within a certain number of months after they’re born. Basically old fat cows that are 30 months old have been put into the food chain because the republicans have the means of getting it in. And a blind eye has been turned to it. This is the kind of thing that’s going on that we’re sick of… There is a blind eye being turned to so much fraud so that they don’t upset the peace process. That is what is creating the problems here

.

We ate Shergar!?

[BonnieShels]

Eating horse meat is one thing. Eating thirty year old horse meat is another.

As an aside. The Facebook page "Things that Willie Frazer says the IRA did" is pretty funny.
It sounds like a typical day on OWC though.

Also on another aside @AreWeACountry is brilliant.

[Gather round]

Nightmare last few minutes for yous. Who's the commentator pronouncing Ronan Scannell's surname as the almost-exotic "scan-ell", ha?

Alas I missed the TV coverage after dropping my laptop in a snowdrift

Fair fux to Cliftonville, they're having a very impressive season.

More cheerfully, later in the evening I was at a Burns-themed ceilidh and ended up singing a medley of Some Hae Meat and The Divil is Dead during the open-mic break.

We ate Shergar!?

Older readers may remember the story at the time, that he was strangled by the 'ring of steel' before ending up in Albert Reynolds' pet food factory.

[BonnieShels]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

http://www.wsc.co.uk/forum-index/28-...art=180#477413

[Gather round]

Well spotted Bonnie. Do I have your permission to post the same ancient gag in two different forums then?

[BonnieShels]

Well spotted Bonnie. Do I have your permission to post the same ancient gag in two different forums then?

Of course. Repost at will.

I've always found it fascinating how the kidnapping of a horse a year before I was born was always a subject we knew and discussed and joked about in school.

[DannyInvincible]

'Ireland won't be united so let loyalists fly flag – Seamus Heaney': http://www.independent.ie/national-n...y-3369083.html

NOBEL laureate Seamus Heaney has waded into the union flag row, saying loyalists should be allowed to fly the emblem in Northern Ireland.

The Derry-born poet – who once famously protested at being included in the 'Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry' because his "passport's green" – said there was "never going to be a united Ireland" so "why don't you let them (loyalists) fly the flag?"

Almost two months of angry loyalist protests have followed the new flag policy, which was voted in by Sinn Fein, SDLP and Alliance councillors at the start of December. The flag will now be flown on designated days, such as royal birthdays.

In an interview with 'The Times' yesterday, Mr Heaney warned that times in Northern Ireland were "very dangerous".

He said that at the start of the Troubles in Derry, the Irish Nationalist politician Eddie McAteer told him "both sides are entitled to their pageantry".

Back in the 1980s, Mr Heaney objected to his inclusion in the 'Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry' with the lines, "Be advised, my passport's green/ No glass of ours was ever raised/ To toast the Queen."

But in relation to the flag row, he said: "They (the loyalists) have an entitlement factor running: the flag is part of it. There's never going to be a united Ireland. So why don't you let them fly the flag?"

SDLP Belfast City councillor Tim Attwood last night defended the decision.

Mr Attwood said the SDLP "remains committed to creating an Ireland, as John Hume said, 'built on respect for diversity and for political difference'."

He added: "That is why the SDLP supported an honourable compromise to fly the union flag on designated days."

Should the possession of an "entitlement factor" necessarily justify the conservation of a status quo? Plenty of hegemonies have possessed notions of entitlement down through history, but it didn't necessitate or justify the maintenance of their power or structures. The slave-trade was founded on the notion of entitlement, for example, but the existence of a sense of entitlement was no reason to maintain it in light of better reasons to get rid of it. Of course, I'm not implying that unionism enjoys some outright hegemony in the north, nor am I comparing unionist power to the slave-trade; just using a fairly light analogy for the sake of argument in the sense that unionist identity symbolism is undoubtedly the more dominant in terms of visual culture in the north.

Besides, loyalists are being let fly the flag on designated days. The flag's display has been restricted rather than prohibited. Heaney may quote Eddie McAteer in relation to both sides being entitled to their pageantry (and I don't disagree with the sentiment), but there'll be no triclour appearing next to the Union flag on Belfast City Hall. Surely the logical conclusion of endorsing such sentiment would be to support the flying of both flags? And if a united Ireland is never going to happen anyway, then shouldn't the emphasis be on ensuring cross-community cultural comfort for everyone in the north rather than appeasing simply unionism/loyalism on this issue?

[geysir]

'Ireland won't be united so let loyalists fly flag – Seamus Heaney': http://www.independent.ie/national-n...y-3369083.html



Should the possession of an "entitlement factor" necessarily justify the conservation of a status quo? Plenty of hegemonies have possessed notions of entitlement down through history, but it didn't necessitate or justify the maintenance of their power or structures. The slave-trade was founded on the notion of entitlement, for example, but the existence of a sense of entitlement was no reason to maintain it in light of better reasons to get rid of it. Of course, I'm not implying that unionism enjoys some outright hegemony in the north, nor am I comparing unionist power to the slave-trade; just using a fairly light analogy for the sake of argument in the sense that unionist identity symbolism is undoubtedly the more dominant in terms of visual culture in the north.

Besides, loyalists are being let fly the flag on designated days. The flag's display has been restricted rather than prohibited. Heaney may quote Eddie McAteer in relation to both sides being entitled to their pageantry (and I don't disagree with the sentiment), but there'll be no triclour appearing next to the Union flag on Belfast City Hall. Surely the logical conclusion of endorsing such sentiment would be to support the flying of both flags? And if a united Ireland is never going to happen anyway, then shouldn't the emphasis be on ensuring cross-community cultural comfort for everyone in the north rather than appeasing simply unionism/loyalism on this issue?

You may have to reread all what Heaney actually said and read it in context. He's taking the píss out the Unionist mindset, using a literary style.
Not included in that Indo article was this quote in full
“Loyalism, or unionism, or Protestantism, or whatever you want to call it, in Northern Ireland it operates not as a class system, but a caste system. And they [the loyalists] have an entitlement factor running: the flag is part of it.”

I like it, 'caste not class'.

[SolitudeRed]

Yes was told about that quote today it did seem a bit odd like I presumed it was out of context, even odder is the fact that the 'Irish Independent' seems to like to publish and toe the same line as The main Unionist Paper up here the Belfast Telegraph which carried the exact same story. They are owned by the same group and all but you would have expected a somewhat different line to be taken on this article!

[Gather round]

Loyalism, or unionism, or Protestantism, or whatever you want to call it, in Northern Ireland it operates not as a class system, but a caste system. And they [the loyalists] have an entitlement factor running: the flag is part of it

Nobel Laureate, or Famous Seamus, or the Culchie Bigot is blowing it out of his a*rse there. It's a different nationality to yours, nothing to do with a caste system that anyone who actually lived under one would recognise.

Yes was told about that quote today it did seem a bit odd like I presumed it was out of context, even odder is the fact that the 'Irish Independent' seems to like to publish and toe the same line as The main Unionist Paper up here the Belfast Telegraph which carried the exact same story. They are owned by the same group and all but you would have expected a somewhat different line to be taken on this article!

The Indo often doesn't bother to edit Southern stories for the Bellylaugh. Which is likely to hasten the latter's closure.

[geysir]

Nobel Laureate, or Famous Seamus, or the Culchie Bigot is blowing it out of his a*rse there. It's a different nationality to yours, nothing to do with a caste system that anyone who actually lived under one would recognise.

Have you ever lived under a caste system?
A non Irish caste system of course

Is Heaney a culchie bigot, in your opinion?

[DannyInvincible]

You may have to reread all what Heaney actually said and read it in context. He's taking the píss out the Unionist mindset, using a literary style.

So he's being ironic/not being serious when he suggests the flag be let fly all year round?

[geysir]

So he's being ironic/not being serious when he suggests the flag be let fly all year round?

I'd say he's saying that bit with a glint in his eye.

He thinks all will be lost over this marching season as the Loyalists won't let this flag issue go. He doesn't think the issue was urgent enough in the first place, compared to what will be lost due tothe possible prolonged reaction over the season, as they 'wipe the floor with taking pagentry to the extreme'.


Heaney on the flag issue

“It’s very dangerous indeed. Somebody made this remark, and it made me alert to a new possibility — they said, if this goes on until the marching season, everything is, in a sense, lost.”The Loyalists, he says, “perceive themselves as almost deserted. And right enough. I think Sinn Fein could have taken it easy. No hurry on flags. Jesus.” “What does it matter? But — it matters utterly to them. And now there’s no way they’re going to go back on it, of course. As someone who knows something of prejudice, from early on, I can understand the Loyalists — but the unremittingness of it ... I remember, at the very beginning of the Troubles in Derry, Eddie McAteer, a big Nationalist politician, he was like the paterfamilias of Nationalism. And he said, ‘both sides are entitled to their pageantry!’ Which was a rather grand utterance, but true enough. But there’s no doubt that the Loyalist side take the pageantry to extremes, they wipe the floor with the others.”“Loyalism, or Unionism, or Protestantism, or whatever you want to call it, in Northern Ireland it operates not as a class system, but a caste system. And they [the Loyalists] have an entitlement factor running: the flag is part of it. There’s never going to be a united Ireland, you know,” he says. “So why don’t you let them fly the flag?”

[DannyInvincible]

Was just reading about Willie Hay and it got me thinking about those who fail to grasp or acknowledge that national identity can transcend territorial boundaries. I've encountered many sceptical unionists doubting or disputing the validity of the Irish national identity of nationalists from north of the border; for example, "James McClean is Northern Irish!" they will assert, as they attempt to suggest he's "not really Irish". Willie Hay is a Donegal-born Protestant/unionist who possesses solely an Irish passport for functional purposes because he is not entitled to a British one. In spite of this, his own cultural identity is very much British and that is how he personally identifies, as is his human right, along with others from his community in east Donegal. Would those same unionists who dispute the Irishness of northern nationalists (in spite of formal and cross-border state recognition) apply the same standard to Willie Hay and dismiss his obviously-proud and deep-rooted sense of Britishness as being similarly bogus?