Martin McGuinness, Irish revolutionary turned statesman, dies at 66

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

Martin McGuinness, an Irish revolutionary whose tactics of armed resistance and then political conciliation made him a hero to nationalists in Northern Ireland, where he fought to end British rule, negotiated a sweeping peace treaty and climbed to the top of the province’s political system, died Tuesday in Derry, Ireland. He was 66.

An announcement of Mr. McGuinness’s death by political party Sinn Fein did not cite a cause of death, aside from a “short illness.”

Mr. McGuinness had been hospitalized in late February for amyloidosis, British and Irish newspapers reported. The disease causes an abnormal protein to build up in the heart and other organs, and was one reason Mr. McGuinness resigned Jan. 9 from his post as deputy first minister, one of Northern Ireland’s two top political positions.

Mr. McGuinness was an equally stabilizing and polarizing force in Northern Ireland politics, where he served as deputy first minister since 2007. The position is part of a power-sharing agreement that splits the British province’s executive branch between two long-warring factions: Catholic nationalists who seek to unite the north with its sovereign counterpart to the south, the Republic of Ireland, and Protestant loyalists who believe Northern Ireland ought to remain a part of the United Kingdom.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/martin-mcguinness-irish-revolutionary-turned-statesman-dies-at-66/2017/03/21/c20d5c6c-033f-11e7-b9fa-ed727b644a0b_story.html?utm_term=.fd041f150bd6

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By Harrison Smith March 21 at 4:15 AM

[OnDoutside]

1. It's a pity it wasn't Adams. I had more time for McGuinness.

[NewRedDawn]

6. Another reason

for congressman Peterless King to weep today. IRA Terroist supporter & his buddy Comrade Trump under investigation . I despise that bloated fast talking Mother Fucker!

[Demoiselle]

13. Tell me about Peter (less) King. I am ignorant about his role in this.

No, really, I am ignorant….Point me to some news sources about King's IRA complicity. (I am NOT challenging you. I really know nothing ….!!)

[NewRedDawn]

15. Go to wikipedia

Its all there. Or google congressman Peter King Irish Republican army supporter.

[CountAllVotes]

8. I do not agree w/your statement

Last edited Tue Mar 21, 2017, 11:09 AM - Edit history (1)

I wish no harm to Gerry Adams. He had great respect for Martin McGuinness. As Gerry Adams has tweeted, "Martin McGuinness never went to war. The war come to him. It came to his street, to his city, to his community," ...

I do not wish ill upon Gerry Adams as he has paid a horrific price in life for crimes he did not commit.

Ireland for the Irish!

A song for Martin McGuinness. I measc Laochra na n-Gael go raibh a anam dílis from Gerry Adams:

Lovely tribute IMO.

[OnDoutside]

10. With respect, you're talking through your arse.

I'm Irish and I live in Ireland, I also lived on the island through the dark days of the 70s, 80s and 90s. I remember when the Irish were treated like shit in Britain, largely due to murdering bastards like Adams and McGuinness.

Gerry Adams has paid no price, unfortunately, unlike people like a mother of ten children, Jean McConville, who was dragged out of her house in front of her children, never to be seen again until her body was discovered after a storm had washed an embankment away from a beach.

Gerry Adams personally ordered her execution when he was West Belfast IRA Officer Commanding. He is responsible, personally, for the deaths of tens if not hundreds of people over the 25 years of the Troubles, from ordering executions, ordering bombings and no doubt carrying out murders.

At least McGuinness faced up somewhat to his IRA past, whereas Adams has never done so. He's lied all his life, he continues to lie as Leader of the Shinners, in fact as a party they are a reflection of him, changing policy on a whim (much like Donald Trump).

[CountAllVotes]

11. I remember too

And yeah that H-BLOCK sucked! Did you like it? Do you just love Maggie the Thatcher too?

I remember Bobby Sands as well and that was not a great thing either!

[OnDoutside]

12. No, I suppose starving oneself to death is never a "great thing".

And no, I didn't "like" it. It was a senseless futile act for which Adams left his supposed comrade to die, after Sands offered to give up his hunger strike in return for talks with a British Government official. It is alleged Adams ordered him not to give in.

p.s. Adams is as evil as Thatcher was.

[Ken Burch]

18. In Northern Ireland, they tried nonviolence.

It was a commendable idea...the British and the Unionist authorities responded to all nonviolent protests with violence...then THIS happened:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1972)

If you want nonviolence, you must insist that ALL nonviolent protests be met with a completely nonviolent response.

[CountAllVotes]

27. Commendable idea yes

But no it did not work.

It is no better today.

I know Catholics living in the north that get rocks thrown at them when they walk to a store and/or work. They are called, "Cats" as a racial slur.

The last place in Ireland I'd care live would be in Ulster.

The death of Bobby Sands left him to die as a martyr and is forever a very ugly stain on those H-Block years and the grotesque hatred that Thatcher embraced towards the Irish race.

Ireland has been fighting this "war" since the British invaded Ireland 1171. It is sad to note that so little of that same hatred has dissipated today.

However I still contend Ireland for the Irish & May Martin McGuinness Rest In Peace!

[Ken Burch]

20. The British had always treated Irish people like shit, though.

It's not as though, prior to The Troubles, it was paradise to be an Irish immigrant in London, Leeds, or Liverpool.

I agree with you that the killing of Jean McConville was indefensible.

But ask yourself this:

If that act were used to exclude SF from any peace process, was there any chance that the violence in NI would ever have ended? Was what happened to Mrs. McConville, vile as it was, worth guaranteeing that the killings would just go on and on forever?

If you want to end war, you need to get the people leading the war to agree to ending it, especially in a situation like NI in which it was always going to be impossible to wipe out the IRA militarily-any attempts to do so would only have lead to thousands of angry young men in places like the Bogside and The Falls joining up to seek revenge.

If the choice was working with Adams or never reaching peace, how does choosing never reaching peace achieve anything?

[OnDoutside]

21. The problem with Adams, above all, is that he has never

even approached honesty, let alone accountability/atonement for what he did. It's one thing, if you are to take what he waged as a "war", to have tit-for-tat deaths of British forces & IRA personnel, it's an entirely a different thing to murder innocent civilians. Something he was never apologised for, presumably because he views them as "collateral damage".

I have sympathy for the naïve 17-18 year olds who were fooled into joining the IRA (in much the same way uneducated Trumpists believe the bullshit) and ended up spending 10-15 years in the Maze.

The vast majority of the people in the Republic of Ireland have tried to get on with our lives, yet unfortunately Adams has imposed himself on us down here. We really don't have a lot in common with the Nordies, they are British nearly 100 years more than us. We have our own identity, and while there is this fairytale stuff of "Blood of my Forefathers", misty eyed longing for a UI, the sheer economic cost coupled with a Unionist population who would resist such a notion, will bring a harsh reality to any such attempt.

To see him swanning around Dail Eireann to this day as a TD, is frankly disgusting and an insult to the memory of our innocent unarmed policemen gunned down by his thugs as they robbed banks and post offices, in the Republic. He runs Sinn Fein like a cult, no one is allowed to say anything against the party, or what he says. IRA henchmen who commit crimes in recent years, escape punishment because no one will testify and any witnesses are threatened to keep their mouth shut (Google Robert McCartney murder). Even where IRA henchmen who were paedophiles were not handed over to the police, but rather went before their own internal "Kangaroo Court" and in most cases were banished from the North to the Republic of Ireland, free to commit paedophile crimes down here. There are lots of other cases, such as

How I was raped by an IRA man and faced a kangaroo court

At the age of 16, Mairia Cahill was subjected to a year long cycle of abuse by IRA man Martin Morris

Anyone who goes public is rounded on by the Sinn Fein politicians and operatives. Putin might have learnt from Sinn Fein about how to destroy people through the internet. They have co-ordinated campaigns of attacking peoples character as soon as they go public, and then their politicians swear that it is all a smear against them !

[PaddyIrishman]

24. Line by line refutation

If Adams admitted tomorrow that he had been a member of the IRA at any time in the past 50 years he would face an automatic jail sentence of two years under the Good Friday Agreement. There is no statute of limitation on scheduled offences like IRA membership.

Every time the IRA killed uninvolved civilians they issued an apology. Adams apologised in Dáil Éireann for the IRA killing of civilians. Google "Adams apologises for IRA" if you don't believe me.

People joined the IRA not because they were fooled by Adams but in reaction to what they saw going on around them. Martin McGuinness joined as a teenager after seeing John Hume beaten and bloodied by the RUC. Was he naive?

Adams has imposed himself? He was elected, twice. This is why he swans around the Dáil. He's a member. That whole democracy thing grinds your gears, doesn't it?

We don't really have a lot in common with the Nordies? We share an island with them. We play against them in Gaelic football and alongside them in rugby. Sinn Féin dominate parliamentary constituencies on both sides of the border.

Economic cost? We were able to bail out banks, bondholders and property developers to the tune of €200 billion plus, but we couldn't afford to unite our country? Do you really think we're incapable of making the island work? These guys don't.[link:http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/why-reunified-ireland-offers-best-outcome-for-north-s-future-1.2918645|

The Unionist population is law abiding. There may be a bit of trouble from the Loyalist "white trash" but without the British to arm, train and direct them, you'll find they're more "special needs" than "special forces".

You make a whole pile of allegations without evidence and remember Mairia Cahill demanded that the IRA investigate her claims and wanted the man she accused of sexually assaulting her beaten up and tied to a lamppost with the words "I am a rapist" draped around his neck. When the IRA refused because it would be a breach of the ceasefire she joined the political wing of the dissidents. She then went to a PSNI that she previously refused to recognise and the prosecution of her alleged assailant collapsed because she refused to give evidence.

Sinn Féin, like any party will defend itself but I'm not even a member of the party and even I had to respond to the ahistorical, hysterical nonsense you posted.

[OnDoutside]

32. You've answered stuff I didn't ask questions on.

I referred to Adams own lack of honesty, not his "apologising" for IRA atrocities. HE has never apologised for his part, even if it was vague in detail.

Again, I said "I have sympathy for the naïve 17-18 year olds who were fooled into joining the IRA", it was not the blanket statement you used, and I stand by it. Radicalised by their environment certainly, but deviously used as fodder by hardline republicans.

Yes, absolutely Adams has imposed himself on the South. He was previously MP for West Belfast, quit and Baron Northstead heading south bringing his unique baggage with him. Democracy within Sinn Fein would be a nice start, and reassuring to the rest of us. Because Shinners are all about De Struggle, they will say and do anything that gets them extra votes, so reminiscent of Trump in the Presidential Election, where he was liable to say whatever would get him votes because he believed in nothing only himself.

You're coming across as a shy Shinner "I'm not even a member of the party". Are you one of those Shinnerbots ? Spain shares a peninsula with Portugal but it doesn't mean they have to (or want to) unite. Sinn Fein having seats on both sides of the border is not a positive of having something in common with the Nordies, that's more like having an unfortunate communicative disease.

We wouldn't be uniting "our country", we would be taking in an even worse basket case than ourselves and when that reality hits the voters, it'd be sunk. And that doesn't take in the many NI young Catholics who identify more as British than Irish.

Your accusations against Mairia Cahill exposes your background. You clearly know well that going to the PSNI wasn't a option for a Republican like Cahill, especially as her rapist was an IRA member. What you wrote is the sort of attack the victim that Shinnerbots regularly trot out.

From Mairia's own site.

At the age of 16, Mairia Cahill was subjected to a year long cycle of abuse by IRA man Martin Morris, and subsequently subjected to two illegal internal “investigations” by the IRA, during which, she was forced to face her abuser in a “Kangaroo Court”. Senior republicans, including the Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, were aware of her abuse and the IRA investigation, yet a code of silence was imposed as they closed ranks and protected themselves.

[PaddyIrishman]

38. Here we go again

I had replied to this earlier but it got lost in the system.

The 17 - 18 year old's who joined the IRA are now Sinn Féin Councilors, MLAs, TDs and MPs. Some didn't get involved after leaving prison and some succumbed to alcoholism and other addictions as a reaction to the prison regime. They are the hard line republicans who went on to secure peace.

You really don't get this whole democracy business, do you? You don't impose yourself on a democracy, you put yourself forward for election as Adams has done, twice, topping the poll on each occasion.

We get it, you don't like Adams and Sinn Féin. That's your choice and you are entitled to your own opinion, you are not however entitled to your own facts.

Sinn Féin like Adams because he has brought them from zero seats to 23 in the South, they're the second biggest party in the Northern Assembly, about 1200 or so votes behind the largest party. Is it time for him to step down? I'd say so, but he'll do it at a time of his choosing when it will do the most good for his party.

Ireland is an island. Iberia is a peninsula. Ireland has had a society, culture, identity and a nationality for millennial, long preceding the Treaty of Westphalia which defined the modern native state. Spain and Portugal have been different countries with different languages, cultures, nationalities and identities for centuries. There isn't a large 40-50% Spanish minority in Portugal yearning to be free.

In short, one of these things is not like the other.

Yeah, young Nationalists in Northern Ireland see themselves as British. That's why you can't move in the Bogside or the Falls Road or South Armagh today for Union Jacks! You really are not comfortable with facts, are you?

Going back to Mairia Cahill. She ordered the initial IRA investigation and refused to go to the PSNI which she refused to recognize as a police force. In fact, she left Sinn Féin and joined a dissident support group the RNU after Sinn Féin voted to recognize the PSNI and joined District Policing Boards. She was hardly still listening to Gerry Adams at that stage. She wanted her alleged assailant brought back from Britain, tied to a lamppost with the words "I am a rapist" on a placard around his neck. When the IRA, having found the man guilty in their "Court" because there were two other complaints this time,refused to do this, did Cahill go to the police ? No. As I said, she left Sinn Féin and joint a dissident support group.

When she finally went to the PSNI she then refused to give evidence because a defence witness would have contradicted her and her case and the other two cases collapsed.

If you take all your information from one source, you are not gong to have the full story.

As Billy Connolly said when talking about fundamentalists "Never trust a man who's only read one book".

[OnDoutside]

40. Fear not

I get you alright pal.

Again, I said "I have sympathy for the naïve 17-18 year olds who were fooled into joining the IRA", it was not the blanket statement you used, and I stand by it

"Some didn't get involved after leaving prison "

Thank you, that includes my statement.

What Trump has done in America, is what Adams has been doing in the Republic of Ireland. He and his cult tell lie after lie, change policy at the drop of a hat if it gets them more votes, and that is because they have only one belief, to force a United Ireland. Everything else is only a means to an end. It's not without coincidence that they target the uneducated, as Trump did. I have the same fear for democracy in Ireland under an Adams/SF/IRA dictatorship, as the Democratic supporters on this site have under a Trump/GOP presidency. SF prospered as a result of the economic collapse, in the same way AAA/SP/PBP did, but going overboard populist, however they are now going to be hemmed in by a resurgent Fianna Fail who are their natural competition.

The point you're being obtuse about Spain/Portugal, is that they are right next to each other, after all you did say

We don't really have a lot in common with the Nordies? We share an island with them

as if that is a justification for a union.

Of course young Nationalists wouldn't see themselves as British (the clue is in the word Nationalist), but I didn't mention young Nationalists. However, I said

And that doesn't take in the many NI young Catholics who identify more as British than Irish.

Nice try though. You really are not comfortable with facts, are you?

As regards, Mairia Cahill, what you are doing is typical Shinnerbot stuff in attacking the credibility of the rape victim, and you should be ashamed of yourself, if you could feel shame. You know, as well as Mairia Cahill knew, indeed as the family of Robert McCartney knew that witnesses against IRA criminals don't happen too often, so don't give us that horse manure.

[PaddyIrishman]

42. Facts are my friend

What will be justification for a union is a border poll. 50%+1.

Ireland and Northern Ireland are not analogous to Spain and Portugal no matter how much you want them to be.

Simples.

As for NI young Catholics who identity more as British than Irish, would you like to put figures on those? Preferably not figures that you plucked out of your arse. Please don't link to newspaper interviews with attention seekers.

As for Mairia Cahill, we can't say that she is a rape victim because she pulled the case against her alleged rapist apart by withdrawing her evidence, a few years ago, long after the IRA ceasefire has been set in stone.

She was a niece of Joe Cahill for God's sake and had the IRA running around after her back in the early to mid 1990's. The idea that she was scared of them is ludicrous.

By the way, you haven't contradicted any of the facts that I have put forward, just tried to play the "shame" card.

Sorry but that doesn't work in the face of the facts. Shame about that.

[OnDoutside]

44. You don't know many friends then ;)

There's nearly 100 years of distance between the South and the North, we've moved on, the Nordies feel as if everyone owes them a living.

I'm referring to the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/catholic-majority-in-northern-ireland-to-present-dilemma-for-britain-and-republic-1.438788

A recent Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey – a rolling record of public opinion – found more than half of Catholics in Northern Ireland (52 per cent) want the long-term future of the North to be as part of the United Kingdom compared with just one in three Catholics favouring a united Ireland.

“All of these surveys have shown over time that there are more Catholics that would stay in Northern Ireland than there are Protestants who would vote for a united Ireland,” says Shirlow. “That does not mean that they don’t speak Irish, or don’t feel culturally Irish but it is a material economic argument for them that this is a better place to live.”

But Shirlow is also conscious of the cussedness of human nature and the unpredictability of events that can cast people back to their nationalist and unionist trenches and mindsets. For instance, and heaven forbid, if there were the equivalent of another Bloody Sunday, or even a Drumcree-type nationalist-unionist standoff, would that trigger shocks that could resurrect the old sectarian “them and us” divisions, he wonders.

“What we need to know is what is the difference between emotional Irishness as in ‘I am Irish, I feel Irish’ and political Irishness as in ‘I have to be Irish, I have to be in a united Ireland’. All of that is up in the air and that is what Peter Robinson has picked up on.”

I didn't say Mairia Cahill was scared of them, I said she knew she wouldn't get justice from Adams and the IRA, and that is why she went public.

As for not contradicting your "facts", I view them with disdain. You are a fine example of the Republican credo of attacking anyone who accuses the IRA or their members, even though they might be a victim of IRA rape, paedophilia or murder, which is something I am glad the Americans on this site are seeing at first hand. Rape victims have a right to be believed, except when the perpetrator is in the 'RA apparently.

[PaddyIrishman]

45. This is getting tiresome

The Northern Irish Life and Times survey of 1,000 people from more than five years ago or the recent assembly election last month where 812,783 people voted?

I think I'll go for option two please.

We still have Brexit and another few years of Conservative austerity to go through before considering whether to go for a border poll and when we do it's 50%+1.

There is no doubt that members of the IRA committed crimes in exactly the same way as members of any group or organisation in society. It's also true that the IRA handled these situations poorly, as did pretty much every institution in Ireland, never mind an illegal organisation trying to conduct a war. Offering the victims a choice of whether they wanted the perpetrator killed, shot or just beaten up with hindsight wasn't the most sensitive approach to take.

Compared to what has come out about the Catholic Church with the complicity of the State, the IRA were in the ha'penny place.

Yes, rape victims have a right to be believed, while the crime is being investigated and if there is enough evidence to prosecute, the rapist should be prosecuted. If the trial collapses because the victim refuses to testify, does she retain the right to be believed?

Why do you think Mairia Cahill refused to testify if we both agree that she wasn't scared of the big bad IRA?

[OnDoutside]

46. Yes indeed

fanatics like yourself don't like having your hardline views challenged.

Sure keeping thinking of your automatic 50%+1, it'll make the kick in the arse you'll get even sweeter, that rejection will provide !

Offering the victims a choice of whether they wanted the perpetrator killed, shot or just beaten up with hindsight wasn't the most sensitive approach to take

Wow, seriously.

Yes the Catholic Church buggered children, just like IRA men, and destroyed women's lives, just like IRA men. So much to admire really.

Yes, rape victims have a right to be believed, so long as they don't put Jarry/SF/IRA in a bad light, yes I can see where you are coming from. If Mairia Cahill had been raped by the Chief Constable of the PSNI, just watch your two faced approach then.

[Ken Burch]

30. Adams has managed to corrall most of the anti-austerity left vote in the Republic for SF.

Last edited Wed Mar 22, 2017, 08:55 PM - Edit history (1)

Which is weird when you consider that, in the NI Assembly, SF has spent years helping the DUP(the largest Unionist party) IMPOSE austerity.

If SF hadn't had its breakthrough in the South, a viable Left party would exist and likely be on the verge of coming to power.

And I'm aware that people in the Republic have a distance on events in the North. Contrary to most Yanks, I don't see the South as a place where everybody wears Arran sweaters and plays Clancy Brothers records 24/7-and that nobody named Sean ever stood around all day peelin' his bloody soap like a gobshite.

I'm no fan of Adams-It's just that I thought he was needed to make the peace process work at least as well as it has in the North. Christ knows what things might be like in the North if he'd been excluded. Look at the kind of people on both sides who had to agree to an ending of hostilities in South Africa, and who will have to agree to it in the Israel/Palestine dispute if THAT is ever to end. If you want peace, you have to get the total bastards to stop being total bastards.

I'm glad you've posted here and have learned a lot from your posts.

[Ken Burch]

16. They both did their bit to stop the violence.

And the violence was never exclusively the fault of the republican side in The Troubles.

[nitpicker]

2. Link to BBC

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-39185899

[TexasProgresive]

3. He will be sorely missed. RIP Martin.

I first learned of amyloidosis when my step mother was diagnosed. It has killed 2 people I know and one author I read, Robert Jordan writer of the Wheel of Time series and Conan the Barbarian.

[Recursion]

4. "Armed resistance"

Let a brown person do the same damn thing...

[Ken Burch]

17. In the US. yes. In the UK, until recently, Irish people were treated as badly as black people

by the police and by the English majority.

The bigoted signs outside of British pubs said "No blacks. No Irish. No dogs".

if that has changed, it's only very recently.

McGuinness is somewhat comparable to Nelson Mandela, both in the historic tactics each used and in the later willingness to compromise each displayed.

[OnDoutside]

22. Ken, that attitude changed in the 90s, it's quite normal now ... and being honest about it

it's even better since we're not from the Middle East.

p.s. you'd see those signs in rentals (rooms would be rented, and landladies would put that in the window).

[Ken Burch]

29. Thanks for the update. The 90s is VERY recent.

Since then in the UK, it is massively worse both for "Middle East"-looking people and for people of African descent as well. And it was never good for those folks before that.

And it was absurd to blame every Irish person in England, Scotland and Wales for what the IRA did. They didn't blame every Scottish Protestant for what the Loyalist paras got up to.

It was rentals? I'd always thought it was pubs as well-not that it was ok anywhere.

They had equivalent signs in Alaska, but I won't say what they said in the thread. I'll tell you if you pm me, but understand entirely if you don't want to know.

[Mc Mike]

5. I'm sorry he died so young.

Him, I trusted.

[CountAllVotes]

7. RIP Martin McGuinness

You will be missed by many sir.

[twogunsid]

9. "I measc Laochra na n-Gael go raibh a anam dlis"....

....A faithful soul among the heroes of Ireland. RIP, Martin.

[OnDoutside]

14. IRA victims sister says the truth died with Martin McGuinness

IRA victim’s sister says ‘the truth died’ with Martin McGuinness

Relatives of those killed in group’s bombings respond to the republican’s death

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/ira-victim-s-sister-says-the-truth-died-with-martin-mcguinness-1.3018911

The sister of an IRA bombing victim has claimed “the truth has died” with former Northern Ireland deputy first minister Martin McGuinness.

Following the death of the former IRA commander on Tuesday at the age of 66, Julie Hambleton said relatives of many of the IRA’s victims were still waiting for “truth and justice”.

She said: “[Mr McGuinness] was very opaque and selective with the truth.

“The truth has died [with him] and that’s the big problem.”

[Ken Burch]

19. To those who are using this thread as an excuse to demonize Sinn Fein,

And to reiterate the argument that SF should always have been excluded from any peace process...remember this:

Sinn Fein didn't create The Troubles. Fifty years of Unionist persecution of the minority population of NI, immediately following 800 years of British persecution of the Irish, created The Troubles.

Fifty years of not only unending harassment of that population by the Royal Ulster Constabulary and by Loyalist thugs(republican thugs were no better, but sometimes people in the States get the idea that nobody but the republican side was ever doing anything violent), fifty years of political powerless-for example, The old Northern Irish Parliament had about 125 seats, but the minority community was never able to elect more than about 5 or 6 MPs; the city of Derry always had a Catholic/pro-Irish majority, but the district lines for the city council races were always gerrymandered to guarantee a Protestant/Pro-British majority, and to guarantee that the majority population of Derry received few if any municipal services-and fifty years of complete indifference about the situation by the British government that had created it, were the causes of The Troubles.

The powers-that-be created an intolerable situation for the Catholic/Nationalist minority-many of whom would probably have been content to accept Unionist rule if only the Unionists had treated the minority population as equal human beings-and left that community with virtually no nonviolent or democratic means to fight for their rights.

In that situation, violent resistance was bound to emerge. It should never have been like that, but those in power are responsible for creating the conditions.

And dad Sinn Fein been eternally excluded from any and all negotiations, there never would have been peace. The Troubles would just have gone on for the rest of eternity. Why would anyone want that?

Yes, SF did horrible things(the Loyalist paras had immoral equivalence on that). But the only way to end the violence was to show that another path to change was possible, and to get SF to accept that path.

If you don't want violence, don't ever impose repression and inequality.

[OnDoutside]

23. It's debatable whether violence was necessary, if anything it made the Unionists

dig their heels in further, prolonging the conflict for 25 years. There is no excuse for the Apartheid the Unionists carried out, and the atrocities carried out by the British Army/UDA/UDF/B Specials were an outrage, however the creation (rather than re-emergence) of the IRA in the North wasn't necessarily the obvious result. Civil Rights marches & agitation may well have brought change sooner. 3000 people lost their lives in a conflict that devastated families, and scarred an island. Violence should never be an inevitability.

Yes, Sinn Fein had to be part of the negotiations, as much as likes of Gusty Spence. The issue I have with Adams is his conduct after that, where Shinners stillhave no respect for the rule of law in this country, and I fear, as we all do with the likes of Steve Bannon, if they ever get control of the Government, we can say goodbye to democracy.

[PaddyIrishman]

25. Of course it was the obvious result

If a sectarian mob are attacking you and that mob is being led by the police, who are armed with amongst other weapons Browning .30 calibre machine guns (used for "riot control &quot where do you think people will look to for protection?

Could it possibly be from the only people who attempted to protect them, the handful left in what was then left of the IRA?

The only reason the English looked at Northern Ireland was because of the violence and the only reason there was change is because of the violence and more importantly the fear of big bombs in the financial centre in London.

You mightn't like that but that is the case.

[OnDoutside]

33. To psychopaths perhaps it is the only answer, for the rest there is always hope for peace.

[PaddyIrishman]

36. I don't know if you noticed or not

But the man this thread is about did precisely that.

He dedicated the last 30 years of his life to working towards peace, bringing the militarists in the IRA with him, seeking reconciliation with his former enemies and trying to make power-sharing work.

There was a ceasefire and a negotiated agreement and everything. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were involved as well. It made all the papers.

You must have missed it

[OnDoutside]

37. Nice switch away from Jarry the barman

I see what you did there

[PaddyIrishman]

39. Adams was a supporter of the peace process too

You may remember the "Hume Adams" talks?

Again, it was in all the papers at the time.

The Irish Independent newspaper (then owned by Tony O'Reilly, CEO of Heinz and now owned by Denis O'Brien, owner of Digicel and pal of the Clintons) railed against the peace process from the start.

Funnily enough, Bill Clinton is in town for the funeral. He mustn't read his pal's newspaper.

[OnDoutside]

41. The peace process was only ever a means to an end for Adams, it was just a change of

strategy for him. As a psychopath, he'd turn back to violence if it suited his purposes.

[PaddyIrishman]

43. We get it

You don't like Gerry Adams.

This is a thread about Martin McGuinness.

[Ken Burch]

31. All true.

My point wasn't to defend violence...simply to point out that those in power(British and Ulster Unionist) reaped what they sowed.

They could always have chosen to treat everyone with equality and respect.

If they'd done that, The Troubles would never have happened.

[OnDoutside]

34. That's fair comment, Ken. I agree with your thoughts on that.

[HoneyBadger]

26. The guy that invented the suicide bomb

And motivated the bomber by holding the kid hostage. I think that he was evil.

[BertNEarnie]

28. Complex figure, but

I don't get it. John Hume, I would feel a deep sense of loss over him, wow, what an inspiring human being, but McGuinness, Paisley? I hope they're at peace, but many people are not because of them. The peace process seems to be working out, good for the people of Northern Ireland, but that doesn’t mean I have to think Johnny “Mad dog” Adair or Martin “the butcher” McGuinness are great humanitarians, when evidence would point to the contrary.

I feel very badly for immigrants here at home, especially South Asians and Somalis, who are being discriminated against and attacked in this country, because people see them as terrorists, while people like Peter King go on and on about the PIRA and Sinn Fein, and their noble struggle; give me a break...

[NewRedDawn]

35. Yeah Mr terrorist supporter Peterless King

Fuck you Peterless King you corrupt nazi terrorist mother fucker.