When is a murder not a murder ?

N

N0elC

Guest
When its carried out by the fine volunteers of SFIRA, according to Dublin’s own favourite apologist MEP.

Why, in this new millennium, with full employment and decent education, a free media, and cheap travel available to most of our people, do these thugs still get such a sizeable vote?

What is wrong with the electorate in this country ?
 
We get the government we deserve, in my opinion we probably get better government than we deserve.
There are many contributers to this forum who's politics I disagree with but I respect their views as they are considered and well formed. For the most part voters in this country are willing to jump on the nearest populist bandwagon that is passing and vote on the basis of half formed, knee jerk headline issues.
 
voters in this country are willing to jump on the nearest populist bandwagon that is passing
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…but that’s not true in the case of SFIRA. Support, and sneaking respect, for these thugs has always been there in Irish society on both sides of the border.

The problem is that our government is unable to stand up to them, because they are afraid of the electoral / terrorist backlash if we do.

Liz Harney is right in saying that the elected representatives of SFIRA in the Dáil should be called upon to account for the criminal activities (including murder) perpetrated by organisations which they represent.
 
Re: McDowell my hero

Mac forced Mitch (McLaughlin, the intelligent face of SFIRA) to deny on TV that killing Joan McConville was a crime;

He also forced Mitch to admit that he believed the IRA to be the legit government of Ireland (no kidding and on TV);

Best of all, Mitch rebounded with what he thought was a "gotcha"; he asked Mac if he believed Bobby (suicide) Sands was a criminal. "You're darned right " retorts Mac. Mitch was shocked, he just couldn't conceive of anyone believing Sandie to be other than a venerable martyr. These guys just ain't real.
 
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You're on the money with that there. I watched that show and just couldn't believe how stupid Mitch really is. Talk about walking into traps....and then trying to dig himself out.

And this coming hot on the heels of Martin McGuinness' interview on BBC NI Heart & Minds in which the interviewer, fair play to him, took Marty to task over the bank robbery. Interviewer, unlike the goons on RTE received to take Marty's word as gospel and asked him if he really expected the public to believe him. Marty was getting so worked up the vein bulging on his head was indicating that he might just dish out a few digs to the head of the interviewer.

But then Marty, not unlike Mitch, found a lovely gotcha, by which he 'nailed' the interviewer by rebutting his claim that the RA are heavily involved in crime such as cigarette smuggling, with the wonderful question 'Can you name one IRA member that has been convicted of cigarette smuggling?'. Again fair play to the interviewer cos he told him that that didn't matter and that the public weren't foolish enough, as the fact that Gallaghers route cigarette deliveries from Belfast to Dublin through Liverpool to avoid the frequent robberies demonstrates, to believe that the RA weren't up to no good. Marty sat there like as if he'd just proven the theory of relativity and kept taunting 'You can't name one can you?' like a kid. I only wish the interviewer had responded with 'Marty Al Capone only went down for tax evasion - are you seriously telling me that that means he wasn't up to criminal acts all over the shop?'.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry when you consider that around 10% of the population think these guys are fit to run the country.
 
Criminals

I think describing all members of the IRA down through the years as de-facto criminals doesn't stand up. Sands and his kind were products of a corrupt gerrymandered state who's institutions were rotten. They were run on a sectarian basis to protect and serve only one side of the community. Housing, employment, local government were all maintaining the unionist side as first-class citizens and the "croppies" as second-class with no prospect of reform from within or without. On top of that you had internment without trial from just the republican side. Many people who would otherwise have not seen the inside of a courthouse in their lifetime in a normal society ended up in the IRA. Writing all of them off as criminals and thugs is an easy thing to do, especially from the insulated environment of the Republic. Extending that black-and-white view back through the decades means the Republic was founded by criminals.
 
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Interesting point there - its true that a certain amount of fighting against the system was inevitable. However, I'm of the opinion that anyone involved in the shooting of Jean McConville, the Omagh bombing, the murder of Gerry McCabe, this latest bank robbery etc. etc. is a criminal plain and simple. In the same way its understandable for Palestinians to rise up against an Israeli state they see as their oppressor, the suicide bombings are totally inexcusable.
 
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Totally inexcusable? Certainly.

But are they CRIMINAL?

Just asking. You seem to water down your indignation a bit in their case.
 
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Brohahaha wrote "Many people who would otherwise have not seen the inside of a courthouse in their lifetime in a normal society ended up in the IRA"

Bobby Sands, who Brohahaha refers to, and his comrades had a vote and equal rights with working class people anywhere else, north or south in the eighties. Sands and his comrades were convicted of bombings, murders etc. They had no right to take up arms and destroy the lives of so many people. The society there was not normal, but they made it less normal than it otherwise would have been. Violence was not the answer.
 
I'm going a bit off topic here but I don't want to open another thread and it's all the same general issue;
IMHO the fact that Bertie Ahern is now adopting a much more hard line stance with Sinn Fein, the same stance as Mr McDowell, has little to do with strongly held principals about violence and a lot to do with undermining Sinn Fein's electoral base in the Republic. Once again he has but party political issues ahead of the national interest. He's consistent if nothing else. I am no supporter of SF/IRA but marginalising them again will serve no good.
On another point raised above; the murder/killing of Jean McConville. The story given out for years was that she was killed for giving a cup of tea to a British soldier. It turns out that this was an out and out lie and she was killed for having a second British army radio set found in her house, the first one having been removed by the IRA and a warning having been given. If the IRA regarded themselves as being at war the regarded she as a collaborator then they cannot regard she killing as murder.
The other thing that bothers me is that our government is now singing off the same hymn sheet as the good reverend and the orange order. In fact it's not what we are doing that bothers me, it's why we are doing it.
 
Re: Criminality

Purple, I agree with you that the JMcC killing is a bit muddled. But SFIRA are now refusing to say the killing of Garda McCabe was a crime - now that is totally ridiculous.

I can kinda see why decommissioning was central to the negs but this criminality thing beggars belief. Did the latest round begin as follows "look here chappies you really must kick this crime habit". "Hey, that wasn't in the GF deal, what are our members goin' to do for a living, you gotta give us more if you expect us to give up crime as well as our WMD".

Meanwhile panic sets in on the ground in Andytown. "Hear the latest guys, we're goin' to have to give up crime, jayz we better get in a biggie quick if we are goin' to be able to live in the style we are accustomed".
 
Re: Criminality

I wonder would all the anti-republican opinions that seem to pop up on this message board more often than not be a tad bit different if the Loyalists took the War to the south! As they had planned at some stage to take back the 3 'southern' counties of Ulster! All well and good judging from the comfortable confines of the republic!
 
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Redbhoy - being anti-IRA does not make a person anti-republican. 90% of the voters in this country do not vote for Sinn Fein, and of the 10% that do there's a fair amount that are stupid enough to believe that by doing so they are not actually supporting the IRA. This leaves a very small minority of voters in the Republic that actually support the IRA, which pretty much explains why the majority of opinions on this site are anti-IRA.

Tharggy - yes, I view the acts described above as criminal.

The Jean McConville case is less clear cut I suppose, based on the conjecture above - problem is whose 'facts' are we supposed to believe in this instance: the trusty local IRA commander or the evidence from those lovable guys in the RUC?

The killing of Gerry McCabe was clear cut - criminals committing crimes. If they were doing it under orders from senior IRA figures then its a clear example of how the RA are as much out and out criminals as supposed freedom figthers. If they were not under orders well then they were simply a bunch of scumbags that also happen to be in the IRA and so theyre trying to exploit the Good Friday Agreement to get them off the hook.
 
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How else could they fund their campaign?? Ask Bertie for money, seek Lotto grants??
At the end of the day our government sold out the nationalist population in the six counties! So in effect -they created the IRA!
 
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Ah sure thats alright then.

That view of history doesn't make the massacres at Omagh, Enniskillen, the murder of innocent Gardai, the intimidation of family members of the disappeared justifiable. Its just pathetic. The Northern Bank raid showed the so called volunteers up for what they really always were: common thugs and criminals.

If these terrorists view themselves as war heroes or whatever, let them stand trial for war crimes.

They bring shame on ALL Irish people !
 
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Well said NoelC. It is pathetic that some people think it is not a crime to torture and murder Jean McConville, on the basis that they claim she was an informer. There is no evedince, is there of a radio? Would not Sinn Fein be grinning like monkeys and parading thois radio if she had one as they say?
And even if she was an informer / had a radio , she would have been reporting to the security services of the state she lived in. What gives the IRA the right to abduct , torture, murder and bury her, and tell her hungry young family she has gone off with a British soldier. Until her remains are discovered as a result of beach errosion decades later.

What hope is there when a sizeable political party cannot think of her abduction / murder as a crime?
 
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War is hell! I believe she was warned about her informing first! Then taken away! Dont get me wrong I hate seeing anyone dying but its a different life up there and if she cared about her family she wouldnt have been informing in the first place and after being warned she couldve moved abroad.
Maybe people died as a result of her informing to the British??
 
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War is hell! I believe she was warned about her informing first! Then taken away!...

...if she cared about her family she wouldnt have been informing in the first place and after being warned she couldve moved abroad.
Maybe people died as a result of her informing to the British??
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What a despicable post! Do you not realise that this woman has a family who have suffered enough? How do you think they feel when others slur her memory as you have just done? Its not as if she is in a position to defend herself. If Gerry Adams' henchmen had left her alone, she might still be able to do so. Instead she was abducted, shot in the head and buried on a beach for 30 years. Eventually by the Grace of God a tourist found her body.

During all this time her family were misled by SFIRA sources as to the location of her remains, and it was also found that some of the top provos who had condemned others to death (including another young mother Caroline Moorhead, murdered as late as July 1994 and whose execution was defended vehemently by Gerry Adams on RTE radio at the time using the excuse that she was an "informer") did so while themselves in the pay of the British security forces.

I can't believe how you can now sit at your PC in your warm comfortable office and excuse this despicable crime - least of all on the day when the world commemorates the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Shame on you!
 
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Hold on and I'll wait til tomorrow and post this! Whats happened is in the past! Especially Auschwitz! A monkey could tell you that Hitler was wrong! We all know whats right and whats wrong! The task now is to ensure this doesnt happen again.
The people of the 6 counties were at War with the British. An informer could result in the death of numerous volunteers! What would you have done if you were controlling the people who were told to deal with Mrs. McConville? And please dont say 'oh i wouldn't have been in the IRA, id have tried to settle it through politics'.
How would you have dealt with her??
 
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A crime is a crime is a crime - war, gangland feud, sectarian campaign or whatever the context

'oh i wouldn't have been in the IRA, id have tried to settle it through politics'.
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Isn't that what John Hume, Seamus Mallon and so many others tried to do but were frustrated by the gunmen on both sides - only for IRA, UDA etc to finally cop on 25 years later that the Sunningdale 1974 deal was as good as they were all ever going to get?

"But shur it was handier to intimidate, murder and maim away for another 25 years...and we're still making a few bob out of it."
 
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