It's in the news today, but I just wanted to make sure anyone interested gets a chance to listen to
this extraordinary segment from the Today programme on R4. I virtually froze in the kitchen listening to it. You will hear some Irish bloke admitting live on radio that he planted bombs, and then Julie Hambleton, who lost her sister in the bombing, telling him in no uncertain terms what a piece of shit he is. I had not come across her before but she's from the same stock as the Hillsborough families, and i think she deserves our support.
Comments
Of course that doesn't change the fact that somebody planted the bombs and then messed up because the phone box they were going to ring to warn the authority's on had been vandalised.
This inquest could take a long time with many stages but like Hillsborough people need to know the truth. What doesn't help is people like kieran Conway who make excuses for these atrocities and who it wouldn't surprise me have known who planted those bombs for all these years.
Unfortunately, the fact that it's now 'well known' who carried out the atrocity is not enough to bring about a prosecution. Knowledge, even confessions must be backed up with rock solid PROOF, especially in politically hot cases where Irish independence and/or remaining 'British' is such a big issue in Northern Ireland
I should preface it by saying that I am of the age where the IRA campaigns had a huge effect on how I see the world. I was at Poly when those Birmingham bomb went off. And my sister who worked in the Lloyds Bank next door, left for home 5 minutes before the Harrods bomb went off.
In December 2004, I was sitting on the Heathrow Express at Paddington, reading my paper. The headline story was the meeting the previous day in Downing Street between Blair, Adams and McGuinness. It was a good news story of lasting peace. Just as the doors were closing, there was a commotion as a group rushed to board at the last moment. I looked up and was gobsmacked to see that this group was the one whose photos I was looking at in my Guardian. Adams, McGuinness and the entourage. They occupied the open space right in front of me.
Of course I am the type who tends to want to "participate in society". I felt like acknowledging them in some way. And then as I looked at them, two huge conflicts started in my head. Part of me was thinking "you are the F***ers who planned to blow up my sister". Part of me looked at the upbeat newspaper report, and thought to wish them a Happy Christmas, not least because they were taking care to be as nice as pie to all around them. That was the thing. Their utterly normal, even agreeable demeanour. People you might share a word with about the weather or the delays at Heathrow.
In the end I figured that if I could not work out what was appropriate to say, I'd probably be better to keep my trap shut. But I have never stopped thinking of that moment, whenever the IRA thing comes up again.
Should I have said something to them? If so, what? (within reason :-))
Twice. "
The Baltic exchange bomb was a Friday night and I was in The Railway pub Liverpool Street and almighty bang and one or two windows broke.
The bishopsgste bomb was a Saturday and only found out about it as met some millwall work colleagues in pub before we gave them their usual three points that afternoon.
But do you think you would have actually said that to them in the same situation, when they were minding their own business having been over to take forward peace process? Just something I keep asking myself...
Adams and McGuiness would have known relatives that could give 1st hand accounts of Easter Rising. 70's Army hit squads would have been sanctioned by seemingly squeaky clean politicians and subsequently covered up. All this only 120 years after we allowed the Irish population to be decimated by the potato blight. I don't condone murder of innocent civilians but we continue to RE-ELECT politicians who do just that.
The British interference in other countries affair's has continued for centuries and our arms manufacturers ensure this is still top of our political agenda.
This is a one off post as I am no expert on the above and don't want to debate semantics of my opinions, but the British occupation of Ireland, as with many other of our colonial conquests is one that I fell eternally ashamed.
Note: Born in Tasmania - aboriginal population - zero
In answer to your question? Bury your head in your paper.
I'm not sure if I feel entirely comfortable with the implication that the British occupation is what The Troubles were a struggle against, at least not as late as the 70s/80s. Surely this would suggest that the occupation is still going strong? I think that does a great disservice to those who lived in fear during The Troubles - perhaps whilst serving in the Security Forces themselves, or maybe just even pronouncing their 'H's wrong - many of whom would have identified as British.
Meanwhile, in my eyes at least, those responsible for the violence seen on the streets don't always appear as though they were fighting a legitimate struggle at that stage; they sound like nothing more than thugs and gangsters who got a bit above their station, and capitalised upon a sectarian divide to appeal to the masses.
Of course there were serious underlying issues, but to make these characters in to something noble and pretend that they were fighting a "just war" as "soldiers" - as Mr. Conway did - is a great dose of salt to the wounds of the innocents that they slaughtered, and the families they destroyed.
Mind you, speaking to them would probably get you placed on some customs watch list and they will get you years later...
I believe you may not have been born when I was at Poly but you've summarised exactly the arguments I had at the time with my fellow student "soshulists". This is an advanced educated country in the 21st century, and there is nothing nothing to excuse murdering innocent civilians in the name of a political cause, especially one which does not have a popular mandate (what's Sinn Fein's polling % again? 15?).
Mr Conway should face consequences for that radio interview.
Re: first hand accounts of the Easter Rising, I won't say it would be impossible, but it would be very unlikely if either Adams or McGuinness had relatives involved (though, by the 1950s roughly 75% of the Irish population seemed to have been intimately involved).
Regarding hit squads and cover ups, all these things did happen, and the problem is, that, just as in today's "War on Terror", you cannot claim a moral high ground if you resort to the tactics of the men of violence (or subcontract your dirty work to them).
I'm a bit of a revisionist historically (because I think its' a good thing to be), and I am actually going to defend the British government during the Great Famine. Don't get me wrong, they did not cover themselves with glory but, the times were very different. All government was laissez faire to one degree or another, and there is no reason to assume that any other government would have done any better ("Irish" landlords showed no greater concern than anyone else). Certainly, Spanish, French, Dutch or Belgian administration would have been likely to be worse; and Irish politicians (with the exception of O'Connell) were hardly renowned, I am not sure a Dublin government would have been better.
As an aside, David Cameron is rapidly bringing us back to the days when we would rely on the charitable instincts of non-governmental groups, I'm not sure that we can expect the Cherokee Nation (who had experienced starvation in living memory in the late 1840s) to provide much relief any time soon though.
I always point people to the situation regarding the Ethiopian Famine and Band Aid. We may have had reports of crop failures and starvation in the news media, but it was only when the pictures were brought in to our living rooms that the tragedy registered. For people in Britain, unless they were to see homeless and starving Irish people in their towns and streets, in the mid-19th century, they would have had little notion of the degree of suffering.
I am anti-colonialism, and firmly believe that the colonial adventures have created far more problems for today than we could ever have believed possible.
However, I want to convey that in more recent times I can't see the historical precedence of abhorrent British actions making the open killing of indiscriminate people acceptable. We're talking about people who are trying to go to work; people who are trying to go about their daily lives. Violence between groups who live just a few streets away from eachother.
Livelihoods lost via damage to businesses and property, minds shattered via PTSD and memories that will never go, and families destroyed via the loss of loved ones.
Don't you find it at all sickening that the people responsible for such actions claim they were "soldiers" in a "just war"? If you can honestly define a "just war" as blowing up a Fish and Chip shop or a pub, then I'll honestly be stunned. Prague, you're entirely correct in that I wasn't born. I simply find it difficult to comprehend, and for very similar reasons to you: we're talking about murder, fear and intimidation on the streets of the United Kingdom and at a time when there's simply no excuse or place for those attitudes. Even visiting family out there about 15 years ago or so was quite an eye opener.
We're not talking about a united population turning against an oppressive and unwanted government either, we're talking about communities that have opposing views co-existing in the same areas. Where the opinions of a given street may be painted on the curb of the pavement or the walls of a house. Where you could be attacked for pronouncing a word in a given way, having a certain name or something as equally innocuous.
Awful, and inexcusable.
Yet the laissez faire British government of the time allowed up to 1 million of it’s own citizens to starve to death while around another 2 million emigrated (and I believe Ireland is the only western country whose overall population is now lower than it was some 175 years ago). And the laissez faire principal applied was that ‘poor relief’ had to come from the funds of the parishes where the destitute and starving lived. But as the starving tenant farmers whose potato crop had failed were unable to pay their rents to their landlords these local parish ‘poor relief’ funds were empty.
he flagged you?? Bloody hell, that charlton1969 bloke doesn't know how much we let him get away with. (not linking him, in case he turns up on this thread :-)
But that wouldn't happen these days would it? Apart from the Chagos islands where we evicted the natives to create a US navy base? Or hanging Afghanistan out to dry? Iraq? Libya? Supplying Saudi arms to kill civilians in Yemen? Not us!
That said, I hope the inquiry gives the relatives some answers, it's the very least they deserve.
I must remember this when I think of the cunts thst machine gunned my friend and his mum ---- I hope all the IRA die a slow and painful death
As long as the ruling classes were well fed and comfortable all was right in the world.
However, firstly, as I mentioned, officially and legally Ireland was part of "this country" at the time.
Secondly, as this rather restrained BBC History of the famine reports:
"Comparison with other modern and contemporary famines establishes beyond any doubt that the Irish famine of the late 1840s, which killed nearly one-eighth of the entire population, was proportionally much more destructive of human life than the vast majority of famines in modern times".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/famine_01.shtml
So far worse than anything suffered by the ordinary people of the rest of the 'British Isles' at the time.