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What you want to say – 19th July, 2017 July 19, 2017

Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.
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As always, following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.

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1. GW - July 19, 2017

Good article by Monbiot here on the origins of the ‘property suprematist’ right in the US and their tactical Leninism.

As he notes the Koch Bros conspiratorial academic/political networks have come a long way in terms of gaining power – the Trump regime being the most advanced stage yet.

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2. C B - July 19, 2017

Latest episode of the Irish History Show. Brian Hanley discussing the career of Martin McGuinness. http://irishhistoryshow.ie/36-martin-mcguinness/

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3. Alibaba - July 19, 2017

Interesting developments at the Charleton Tribunal which is to adjudicate whether there was a smear campaign against Sergeant Maurice McCabe. 

Ms D made the allegation of sexual abuse against McCabe in 2006, a case subsequently dismissed by the DPP. She told the Tribunal that she met with journalist Paul Williams about her case in 2014 because she was “furious” about the positive media coverage McCabe was receiving for his whistleblowing on misconduct within the police. It seems Ms D agreed that she told Williams that McCabe’s whistleblower claims had ruined many Garda careers, although she now deems this to have been a “flippant remark”. She said she wanted to speak for herself, and was not prompted by anyone else to do so. Mind you, the father of Ms D was a colleague of Mc Cabe and he, known as Mr D, told the Tribunal that another garda colleague had suggested that his daughter could speak to Paul Williams. Yet the other garda colleague, John O’Reilly, told the Tribunal he had not suggested that Mr D contact Paul Williams in order for his daughter to tell his story.

Today we discover: 

‘Sergeant Maurice McCabe complained about a Garda colleague after the man and two other officers turned up at the scene of a suicide in Co Cavan having been in a pub beforehand drinking, the Charleton Tribunal has heard.

The complaint led to the Garda colleague being disciplined. Some months after the complaint the man’s daughter, who is being called Ms D, made an historical child sex abuse allegation against Sgt McCabe.’

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/mccabe-complained-about-garda-who-attended-suicide-scene-after-pub-tribunal-told-1.3160288

And bearing in mind Paul Williams is the same Irish Independent journalist who is known to have very close links with the An Garda Síochána. He has since said he was never briefed by “senior gardaí” about rumours concerning McCabe.

You may well know all this information already. But I’m just saying — what a red flag to any potential whistleblowers.

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WorldbyStorm - July 19, 2017

It is genuinely disturbing what we are hearing and as you say what red flag to other whistleblowers.

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Ivorthorne - July 20, 2017

There are several aspects of Miss D’s testimony that seem problematic (not to mention Williams). The one that jumps out at me is that I heard reported that Williams suggested going to GSOC.

Really? Your Dad is a Garda and never suggests it to you? Is he unfamiliar with GSOC or something?

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WorldbyStorm - July 20, 2017

Very true

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meru - July 20, 2017

i have been aware that drivers of Bus Eireann liaise with various towns’ business associations, chambers of commerce, etc., and indicate forward to these if/when some-one will be at their town.
now, in Busarus, standing centre-stage, may be (definitely was), a ‘Synergy’ security guard, giving answers to passengers about times of buses. The exact same is happening in Cork station. (‘Synergy’ uniforms are similar to bus eireann).
Today, i looked at the Noonan.ie security website, and their page about their ‘Police & Justice’, says: “Our strategic partnership with police forces has freed their officers and management to focus on key policing duties, resulting in cost-savings. We have expertise in 14 different service lines within our police and justice sector from cleaning and administration duties to civilian and custody detention, prisoner transport and call handling and dispatch.”
imo – these ‘umble uriah heep ‘cleaning’ companies are the Trojan horse, in this country.
btw – all this about the Garda Commissioner seems odd to me , and may be the media undermining the gardai?

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4. Starkadder - July 19, 2017

The thread on “national identities” got me thinking….what does
Irish national identity mean today?

The obvious thing is the decline of the Catholic Church-certainly since the 1990s a succession of scandals, declining attendance and the arrival of non-Catholic immigrants all moved the Church away from its role as a central pillar of Irish identity. But the Church stills holds a large amount of our schools and hospitals.

Any other thoughts on this?

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WorldbyStorm - July 19, 2017

Hmmmm. We could be writing theses on it but well worth a thread of its own.

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Geraldus Galwensis - July 19, 2017

The arrival of Catholic immigrants from Africa, Latin America, The Philippines, India, Poland and other parts of eastern Europe may also be having local effects socially and on church attendance. Attitudes among the New Irish of Muslim and Protestant faith to issues like abortion, same sex marriage and whatever may be interesting to ponder.

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WorldbyStorm - July 20, 2017

Still, given the numbers I wonder if that’s even registering on any scale we care to mention (and given the tendency of Protestants and Catholics already in situ to a certain social conservatism some of the time do you think it adds significantly – always assuming those who travel from their original countries are more rather than less conservative in their views).

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Ivorthorne - July 20, 2017

I can’t really see Catholicism as having forming a special part of Irish identity for the past 30 years.

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EWI - July 22, 2017

Any other thoughts on this?

Yes. A two-day conference on ‘Southern Loyalism’ in Maynooth has failed to reach any semblance on unified position on whether Protestant and Loyalist are synonyms. Shamefully, this meant that no-one thought to give a paper on the best known southern loyalist of the last century:

John Redmond.

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Brian Hanley - July 22, 2017

That’s probably because Redmond wasn’t a loyalist; certainly not in the sense anyone in 1916 would have understood.

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EWI - July 22, 2017

I would disagree. This supposed once-Parnellite had by 1914 come out as: supporting the Empire, its wars and colonisation efforts; being an enthusiastic recruiter; having no problem with the Crown; accepted partition; and was clearly a most reluctant Home Ruler in any case. In 1916 he tried to order the National Volunteers in Dublin to fight alongside the British Army against the Irish rebels (source: the Ernie O’Malley Papers).

Certainly by the end of the War of Independence, other IPP people with that sort of faithful resume were being well-treated as loyalists by the departing British.

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Brian Hanley - July 22, 2017

Well then we’ll agree to disagree. If you were a unionist or a loyalist in 1916 then you supported the Unionists. Redmond led the nationalists, and despite his belief that home rule could be accommodated within the empire this made him seem like a dangerous radical to British conservative opinion; some of his protestations of loyalty can only be understood because of this. Home Rulers were not loyalist- they did not believe in maintaining the United Kingdom. As late as 1912 Tom Clark wrote that Redmond was essentially an honest nationalist, much as he disagreed with him. Redmond, had after all visited Clark in prison on several occasions and been personally thanked by Clark for his role in the amnesty campaign.
But basically I don’t think the Home Rulers were Loyalists. I think the Loyalists were Loyalists.

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EWI - July 22, 2017

No, disagreement’s fine. Redmond had been playing a double game since he took over the reunited Irish Party at the turn of the century; preaching loyalty in Werstminster and ‘treason’ in front of Irish audiences. WWI and 1916 only made this plainly obvious, past any power of the party’s propaganda to disguise his real, entirely imperialist position. He showed twice that he actually wasn’t much of a Home Ruler; first with his willingness to take the Irish Council Bill instead of it (only resistance by the likes of the YIB stopped that), then with his acceptance of the mockery of a Home Rule Bill in 1914 (which was then delayed, to add insult). As for the United Kingdom. Redmond was clearly content to remain inside it (as indeed were the Ulster unionists under their local ‘home rule’).

From 1898 onwards Clarke and the others were clearly coming towards a realisation that Redmond was no longer on team fenian; the attempt to take over the 1798 commemorations, the move against the Wolfe Tone monument with their Parnell one; the undeniable failure of IPP promises to find jobs with Dublin Corporation for old IRB men (the SF councillors and the likes of Fred Allan got MacBride and others their jobs there). Certainly by the start of 1914 the break was very clear, over the IPP attempts to neuter the Irish Volunteers. That same year the likes of the IPP’s main man in the Corpo, Henry Campbell, were busy writing letters to Dublin Castle on topics such as thwarting the Bachelor’s Walk marker slab and the ‘disloyalty’ of various employees.

I think we can both agree that they weren’t (big L) Loyalists, but loyalists to ‘king and country’ I think many of them certainly were. Campbell himself collaborated fairly openly with the British during the War of Independence, and had to be removed by the council. The British after gave him a knighthood for his efforts.

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Alibaba - July 23, 2017

I agree with Brian Hanley’s points. But I can see how others might think otherwise. Redmond’s enlistment of support for the British and Allied war efforts in the expectation that this would deliver Home Rule after a short war, understandly alienated those of more confrontational republican views. That’s not an excuse, however, for see him as a Loyalist, when clearly he wasn’t. Facts matter, even if this means confronting unwelcome realities. 

Let me digress. I’ve seen an interesting piece in The Phoenix whereby the West Cork History Festival is hosting an event to discuss the War of Independence. Invitees include Roy Foster, Eoghan Harris, Kevin Myers, Ruth Dudley Edwards and various academic and media revisionists. It would seem factual errors are thriving to suggest the sectarian antics of the historic IRA. For instance:

‘The festival will also include discussion of the late historian Peter Hart’s contention that IRA icon Tom Barry ordered the execution of British auxiliaries after they had surrendered at the 1920 Kilmichael ambush.

Hart claimed as evidence an interview with the last surviving member of Barry’s Flying Column who, it turned out, had died six days before the interview took place.’

No wonder this event is now known as ‘West Brit History Fest’.

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WorldbyStorm - July 23, 2017

Re Redmond agree Alibaba, it strikes me that this shows how concepts slip through time and dependent on circumstance and context. EWI may well be correct Redmond was insincere but from the perspective of actual loyalists and unionists what Redmond proposed and supported, not advanced nationalism but HR, was anathema and likewise to the British state. We know that x years later a Britain conceded a measure that went some way beyond HR but that entailed mobilisation and war and advanced nationalism (gaining a measure of mass support that had previously eluded it). And consequently wasn’t predictable or not easily so.

But while I wouldn’t be a fan at all of Redmonds brand of HR there’s no question it alone presented massive problems to the British state and simply because unionism itself had to settle for its own brand of same is an historical irony.

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EWI - July 23, 2017

Redmond’s enlistment of support for the British and Allied war efforts in the expectation that this would deliver Home Rule after a short war, understandly alienated those of more confrontational republican views. That’s not an excuse, however, for see him as a Loyalist, when clearly he wasn’t. Facts matter, even if this means confronting unwelcome realities.

Roddy’s mentioning of seeing a photo of Redmond recruiting with a Union Jack flag is no doubt correct. People nowadays don’t recall it, but opposing the British Empire, wars and indeed their military recruiting was the Irish Party position throughout their history up until the radical departure in 1914. Redmond’s efforts to prove his loyalty (and get leftovers from the table) involved a raft of real behaviour – as opposed to his usual deliberately vague IPP rhetoric about a ‘free’ Ireland etc. – which were entirely alien to the IPP’s traditional nationalist stances as understood by the great mass of Irish people. There’s not a sliver of real, substantive difference that I can see by the time of WWI between him and the other ‘loyal’ leaders in the British Empire.

We also have a fairly recent great Redmond admirer and FG leader to illustrate that this kind of thing – an Irish nationalist or republican party (to say nothing of socialists) where someone clearly not sharing that worldview has clambered to the top – isn’t unknown even in recent times. Redmond, in the kindest version, spent too long in Westminster and went native, proving the SF stance on abstentionism to be correct.

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Paul Dillon - July 23, 2017

In what sense was Redmond a ‘supposed’ once-Parnellite? As he was a Parnellite MP through the 1880s and he led the Parnellite faction of the parliamentary party from Parnell’s death through the 1890s there can hardly be much ‘supposed’ about it.

And he ‘was clearly a most reluctant Home Ruler in any case’. Since his primary political aim through his career was a Home Rule parliament in Dublin (yes, under the Crown), what is your evidence for this reluctance?

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EWI - July 23, 2017

In what sense was Redmond a ‘supposed’ once-Parnellite? As he was a Parnellite MP through the 1880s and he led the Parnellite faction of the parliamentary party from Parnell’s death through the 1890s there can hardly be much ‘supposed’ about it.

Notable features of what might be termed ‘Parnellism’ included the requirement for Home Rule (and not as the final destination for Irish sovereignty), opposition to imperial wars, resisting British Army recruiting, and a clear understanding with the IRB. All of these positions were abandoned, neglected or opposed by Redmond in the years after the turn of the century.

And he ‘was clearly a most reluctant Home Ruler in any case’. Since his primary political aim through his career was a Home Rule parliament in Dublin (yes, under the Crown), what is your evidence for this reluctance?

See the Irish Council Bill, and Redmond’s acceptance of both partition and the mutilated ‘Home Rule’ he was offered before WWI.

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EWI - July 23, 2017

Redmond, in the kindest version, spent too long in Westminster and went native, proving the SF stance on abstentionism to be correct.

Self-edit: Better to say that he proved the IRB stance on the ultimate effects of engaging in the imperial parliament at Westminster to be entirely correct.

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Paul Dillon - July 23, 2017

That doesn’t explain how he was a ‘supposed once-Parnellite’. Redmond adhered in the 1890s to these features of Parnellism which you list – otherwise how could he abandon them, as you say he did later.

Because you object to his later positions as pro-imperialist or a betrayal of nationalism, you seem to want to project this back into the 1890s.

Redmond can clearly be described as a Parnellite in those earlier years – you can’t simply invent historical facts because you object to someone’s politics.

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EWI - July 23, 2017

I think that we’re both agreed here that Redmond didn’t support most of these essential Parnellite policies by the summit of his career in the 1910s (though I would argue he had at the very least rowed back on all of them); I note that you also don’t seem to be disputing that there was a long period before where he was being misleading in his public statements on such things. Neither of us can really know what were his heartfelt feelings on these matters in the years when Parnell was alive, but my personal opinion is that such blatant deceit (and that’s what it was) doesn’t come out of nowhere.

Look at Tony Blair, one-time Labour leader in the UK, and also cheerleader for American military adventurism in Iraq. He eventually came out so diametrically opposed on this and other matters, unapologetically betraying traditional Labour Party positions. To me that does strongly lend credence, whether you like it or not, that he was always someone who had, like Redmond (as I would argue) deceived people for years through paying lip-service to Labour values.

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5. roddy - July 19, 2017

Does anybody ever consider if Ms D might need to be treated with some scepticism, that others whose every utterance about say Gerry Adams might warrant some scepticism too?

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WorldbyStorm - July 20, 2017

Absolutely.

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6. Michael Carley - July 20, 2017

Is the ghost of Michael Collins having a little laugh at the troubles Partition is causing Britain in its Brexit negotiations?

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ivorthorne - July 20, 2017

A momentary laugh.

I think we all know that as far as the Tories are concerned, all of Northern Ireland’s people are disposable. Were it not for the Dublin government and the fact that the EU is allied with Ireland, the Tories would be quite happy to damn the North to decades of poverty, social problems and violence (so long as it didn’t affect the mainland).

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7. roddy - July 20, 2017

Why are they going to have a scorched earth policy on Rathlin island and spare the rest of us on “THE MAINLAND”!

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8. ar scáth a chéile - July 22, 2017

Patrick Cockburn reports estimates of 40,000 plus civilians killed in battle of Mosul.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/mosul-massacre-battle-isis-iraq-city-civilian-casualties-killed-deaths-fighting-forces-islamic-state-a7848781.html

It’s staggering . By any reasonable metric, even allowing for ‘faraway country’ factor, this should be a very big story .

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WorldbyStorm - July 22, 2017

Yes, agreed.

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FergusD - July 24, 2017
GW - July 24, 2017

Thanks for the link asac.

Name rings a bell – ah – Uzbekistan whistleblowerCraig Murray. He states:

In Srebrenica the cowardice and bureaucratic blinkers of a group of Dutch officers were shameful. But Mosul is the equivalent of the Dutch having fought alongside the attackers then pretended not to notice anything at all was happening.

There is also another great difference in western culpability. In the Balkan Wars the Serbs were the “enemy” of the West – NATO even bombed them – so justified mainstream media outrage was screamed at us. In Mosul, those perpetrating the massacre are on “our side”, so you will never hear much of it. The deliberate conflation of Sunni tribesmen defending their homes against their traditional enemy, with the separate forces of ISIS, aids this lie.

Might well buy his book on Sikunder Burns.

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9. roddy - July 22, 2017

Redmond was a recruiting officer for the forces of British imperialism.Is that not loyal enough?

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10. Brian Hanley - July 22, 2017

Not the way his supporters would have perceived it. All the Home Rule party’s pro-war propaganda stressed fighting for Ireland not Britain. As the father of one Irish medal winner put it at a recruiting meeting in Cork; we have to beat the Germans or else they will come here and do what the British have been doing to us for hundreds of years!

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EWI - July 22, 2017

All the Home Rule party’s pro-war propaganda stressed fighting for Ireland not Britain.

To which the immediate and obvious response is that ‘it would, wouldn’t it’. Not just in Ireland – I’m thinking of the recruiting propaganda in French targeting the Quebecois, promises to the Arabs and all the rest of it.

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Phil F - July 23, 2017

Brian, I don’t think the two can be separated this neatly. It was the *British Army* that Redmond was recruiting for and he accepted that they wouldn’t even have their own command, as was given the loyalists of Ulster who just a few years earlier had been most disloyal.

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Phil F - July 23, 2017

What was it that Larkin said? “Redmond eats his own vomit”? And he asked if there wasn’t someone in the country to dispense with “this Judas”. Larkin could be extravagant with a turn of phrase, but I think it was clear to him and others (like Connolly, Markievicz and the left part of the IRB) that Redmond was on the (British) imperialists’ side and was prepared to sacrifice a huge number of Irish lives.

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11. roddy - July 23, 2017

Last year I attended a 1916 lecture by Eamon Phoenix.One of his slides showed Redmond addressing a recruiting rally with a massive union jack on the platform behind him.

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Brian Hanley - July 23, 2017

That’s true. But John Dillon also addressed the Belfast Volunteers and told them service in the war was necessary because it would gain them valuable experience for the war to come over Home Rule in Ireland. Like any political formation, they said different things to different people, often at the same time.

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Phil F - July 23, 2017

But this means what he said to Belfast Volunteers is simply not to be taken seriously. He aimed to split the Volunteers and take as many as he could with him, so he told them what he thought they wanted to hear. There was no way he was going to lead a war for independence after WW1. Seven or eight months after he died, the mass of the nationalist population of the island delivered their verdict on him, his party and their policy.

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Brian Hanley - July 23, 2017

Its not a matter of defending Redmond or agreeing with him. Its looking at why Home Rule was a mass movement and how it appealed to nationalists. In 1914 Pearse refused to allow Volunteer weapons to be sent to Belfast because he dismissed the idea of ‘a massacre’ but the Home Rulers in the city (who Dillon was addressing in 1915) had a clearer idea of sectarian realities and hence held on there even in 1918. (Pearse said that if the UVF fought the British, republicans hold support the UVF) And the trouncing of the Home Rule party in 1918 (under first past the post) doesn’t necessarily mean the mass of nationalists had become republicans- for many of them their views changed remarkably little – but what seemed possible in 1918 was vastly different to what seem possible in 1914.

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WorldbyStorm - July 23, 2017

That to me is it exactly, that Redmond made a huge and wrong miscalculation but 1914 was different to 1918. The British govt wasn’t in negotiation w Unionism and Redmond for the good of its health, very very few in 1915 would have argued HR was equivalent to Unionism and even after it wasn’t – and there’s a danger of replicating Brutons error of over reifying what HR was in one direction (i.e. Next stop the Republic!) in the other direction (Might as well merge with the Unionist Party!). There’s a further point to that in relation to imperialism no one quite escapes unscathed…’gallant allies’ etc.

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EWI - July 23, 2017

Its looking at why Home Rule was a mass movement and how it appealed to nationalists.

I think that the train was inevitably coming off the tracks in that regard, the great imperial war and the rising were just hastening the process along. I’m reminded here, like I say, of Blair and the Iraq war.

In 1914 Pearse refused to allow Volunteer weapons to be sent to Belfast because he dismissed the idea of ‘a massacre’ but the Home Rulers in the city (who Dillon was addressing in 1915) had a clearer idea of sectarian realities and hence held on there even in 1918. (Pearse said that if the UVF fought the British, republicans hold support the UVF)

I don’t think that that framing of Pearse and the Ulster question holds water at all. Firstly, the move by the Redmondites to send the Howth arms to Ulster was considered by members of the original committee to be a transparent attempt to remove them from the IRB-aligned Volunteers to control by the Irish Party and its allies (Joe Devlin’s Hibernians, who constituted the IV and later the NV in Belfast etc., were to be the recipients).

A later, leaked private letter by Devlin which talked about the desirability of disarming the National Volunteers caused a public scandal, and undoubtedly played a part in the decision by a large part of the remaining NV to repudiate the IPP control and finally throw in with the IV. Remember, the path of IPP interest in the Volunteers went: attempts to condemn and obstruct the initial movement; when that failed, a campaign of entryism by large numbers of Hibernians etc.; the ‘split’ threats used to gain Redmondite control; the recruitment card being played at Woodenbridge; finally, neglect and abandonment by Redmond, who had no real interest in the movement (all of this can be traced through BMH witness statements, private letters and the newspapers).

As to the Supreme Council and their plan, I think that with the benefit of the pat forty years we can say that they were right in going out of their way to avoid confrontation with Ulster loyalism (even to the Easter rising plans involving the northern volunteers travelling out of their area to join in. Connolly had long been familiar with Belfast, and Clarke was from Tyrone – these were men aware of the dangers in picking a fight with northern loyalism, which escalation would have certainly been more in the line of the IPP’s thinking and interests anyway than the non-sectarian republicans of the IRB.

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EWI - July 23, 2017

And the trouncing of the Home Rule party in 1918 (under first past the post) doesn’t necessarily mean the mass of nationalists had become republicans- for many of them their views changed remarkably little – but what seemed possible in 1918 was vastly different to what seem possible in 1914.

There are two things to consider here – the first being that huge numbers of Irish people, who had never before been represented, now had the vote for the first time. This cannot be underestimated in providing the first appearance of what we would recognise as democracy in Ireland (and such a huge historic issue that it had been considered a quite radical aim of the IRB, held from the outset of that organisation). Sinn Féin had deliberately stood aside in the previous election so as to maximise votes for Home Rule (they were also understandably wary of the Redmondites pinning blame on them for inaction over the issue).

The second is the issue that I’ve referred to here before – that Redmond had gotten great mileage out of wrapping the green flag around him at home (and in the US) with rhetoric about Irish freedom, the old struggles etc (it’s now forgotten that Donovan O’Rossa was an IPP guest on a tour of Ireland some years before), but that put to the pin of his collar by the imperial needs of the war and then the rising, he had to show his true colours – and did so. This cannot have led to a good electoral outcome for him in 1918.

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EWI - July 23, 2017

and there’s a danger of replicating Brutons error of over reifying what HR was in one direction (i.e. Next stop the Republic!) in the other direction (Might as well merge with the Unionist Party!).

Well, I’m not talking about Home Rule, which even SF, Pearse and everyone else supported as a step in the right direction. I’m talking about Redmond and Redmondism here, which is a different issue. In 1907 Redmond was prepared to accept the Irish Council Bill, a a long way from Home Rule, before a revolt in his own party scuppered the deal. In 1914 he accepted a watered-down version of Home rule which incorporated partition.

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WorldbyStorm - July 23, 2017

But no one is denying he wasn’t great, I’ve already noted he bet the house wrongly on the UK thanking him for war participation, but that doesn’t make him a loyalist or a unionist as was understood by those terms at the time.

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EWI - July 23, 2017

but that doesn’t make him a loyalist or a unionist as was understood by those terms at the time.

I disagree – I think he was entirely understood to be a loyal British subject in Ireland, not least by Dublin Castle. The fact that he was in sectarian competition with other such loyal subjects is neither here not there in this respect.

Let’s try a different tack. By which speeches or actions was Redmond not as unionist/loyalist as the Ulster unionists of his day?

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WorldbyStorm - July 23, 2017

Logically by your latest argument all seeking home rule were functionally loyal, not least since it wasn’t forbidden by the British to politically campaign for such. And hr was positioned in loyalty to the crown. And it was until 1916 hegemonic in its support and thereafter still remarkably strong as evidenced by percentage support vote wise (though not in seat returns due to fptp). So of course Redmond by our lights was loyal, but that didn’t make him a loyalist unionist as those terms were understood then because he and other hr proponents wanted a significantly different form of govt to loyalists and unionists. And unionists hated HR because they rightly saw it as a stepping stone out of the union (and in any event it would have been a significant rupture with the status quo). And just on that if Redmond was so loyal and do unionist why did they agitate against him, why did they fight every step of the way? Let’s contemporize it. No one calls the SNP unionists because they work within the UK system or sought and supported devolution. And Scottish unionists were antagonistic in the main to devolution because they saw it as a weakening of the union. Very possibly Redmond was ultimately wishy washy in regard to ultimate outcomes but his stated goal and that of his party was HR and he could not have resiled from that even as the Tories and unionists cut the ground out from under him.

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Jim Monaghan - July 24, 2017

” (Pearse said that if the UVF fought the British, republicans hold support the UVF) ” Remarkably stupid. And Goulding said the same quite later. This carries the “enemy of my enemy is great” to an insane level.

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EWI - July 24, 2017

” (Pearse said that if the UVF fought the British, republicans hold support the UVF) ” Remarkably stupid. And Goulding said the same quite later. This carries the “enemy of my enemy is great” to an insane level.

Not really – this was just rhetoric, after all (though it was good politics). The Volunteers were still in their tightrope act, trying not to give the British excuses to act against them.

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EWI - July 24, 2017

Logically by your latest argument all seeking home rule were functionally loyal, not least since it wasn’t forbidden by the British to politically campaign for such. And hr was positioned in loyalty to the crown.

Not so. Many of those who backed Home Rule saw it as a real step on the way to freedom. Redmond clearly saw it as the power to control patronage and power, nothing more.

And it was until 1916 hegemonic in its support and thereafter still remarkably strong as evidenced by percentage support vote wise (though not in seat returns due to fptp).

That doesn’t really make any sense, WbS. The Irish Party still had recognisable factions such as Devlin’s Hibernians, the YIB etc. And we only need to deal with the seats won in 1918, due to FPTP but also from the political wisdom to that point which was not to run candidates in seats where you had no hope (which the IPP had benefitted from themselves in past elections). Even during the war, the IPP leaders recognised how unpopular they were becoming and refer to it often in their letters.

So of course Redmond by our lights was loyal, but that didn’t make him a loyalist unionist as those terms were understood then because he and other hr proponents wanted a significantly different form of govt to loyalists and unionists.

He believed in remaining part of the UK. He just wanted to replace Dublin Castle as the administrator of the spoils in Ireland. It’s pretty simple.

And unionists hated HR because they rightly saw it as a stepping stone out of the union (and in any event it would have been a significant rupture with the status quo).

Not at all so. The Ulster unionists were and have been demonstrably happy to have home rule, once it’s under their sole control.

And just on that if Redmond was so loyal and do unionist why did they agitate against him, why did they fight every step of the way?

Because the real unionist cause is built on supremacy over Catholics, not all that smoke and mirrors about the ‘union’ or whatever. If that isn’t the central lesson given in recent times by their talk of UDI, then I’m probably wasting my time here in this thread.

Let’s contemporize it. No one calls the SNP unionists because they work within the UK system or sought and supported devolution.

The open aim of the SNP is to break the union. This is why they’re not unionists. I’m again unsure how and why you’ve missed this.

And Scottish unionists were antagonistic in the main to devolution because they saw it as a weakening of the union. Very possibly Redmond was ultimately wishy washy in regard to ultimate outcomes but his stated goal and that of his party was HR and he could not have resiled from that even as the Tories and unionists cut the ground out from under him.

But he did resile from that, in 1907 and again in 1912. These are the facts.

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WorldbyStorm - July 25, 2017

Of course HR was about remaining part of the UK, I’ve not argued otherwise but that’s precisely the point, HR and the IPP signed up to remain in the UK so again logically by your line they were all unionists, not just Redmond. But that isn’t how it was understood at the time or indeed by most of us subsequently.

Theres no point in arguing because the post 21 dispensation saw a de facto HR parliament run by unionism that meant they were happy with HR in 1914 or 1917. Its not like and like. Unionism settled for that because they had no choice just as they jettisoned three counties of ulster because if they wanted a long lasting majority in Ulster they had no choice.

If you think HR and the IIP are essentially unionist (as distinct from er home rule) this seems to me to be a shift from your original position which I interpreted as being g Redmond was unionist but HR wasn’t. Tbh I can’t see how that line of argument is useful in terms of explaining the politics of that period and after. Few who supported HR would have understood themselves as functionally unionist and I’ll bet next to no unionists considered themselves home rulers. Redmond tried to resile to some extent but wasn’t allowed to but even that doesn’t prove he was a unionist just a not terribly great tactician. One has to ask what did Redmond want and clearly he did not want the union as was. He wanted a modified dispensation. This was shaped by circumstance and again we both agree it was inadequate but it was not unionism as understood at the time. Again I started this by noting how concepts shift.

Just on the IPPs popularity or otherwise in 1918 it still after everything received 20% plus odf the vote.

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Alibaba - July 25, 2017

An even-handed historical commentary must incorporate facts. So let’s look at the broader picture. Ulster loyalism arose in the late 19th century, as a response to the Home Rule movement and the emergence of Catholic Irish nationalism. In the north the Protestant majority rejected the Irish Parliamentary Party of the 19th and early 20th century and the Republicans of the twentieth. Northern Protestants formed a bloc in favour of the Union with Great Britain. This Unionist bloc legitimised their discrimination against the Catholic and nationalist people in colonialist and racist language. Within this bloc was a distinct layer called ‘loyalists’ notably consisting of some working class elements.

Much to their dismay Redmond was critical in securing the passage of the 1912 Government of Ireland Act making Home Rule legal. It was suspended with the outbreak of war in August 1914 and Redmond encouraged Irish people to go needlessly into war in the erroneous belief that this would get HR implemented shortly thereafter. Thousands died in supporting the British war effort and the Irish Volunteers went split. Nonetheless, Redmond’s moderate and compromised striving for Home Rule was anathema to the Unionist bloc. It was also repugnant to those who sought no connection with the UK whatsoever. Still, EWI, all things considered, there is no credible evidence to suggest that Redmond was a Loyalist, capitalised or not. On the contrary, he was their opponent. Fact.

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EWI - July 25, 2017

Of course HR was about remaining part of the UK, I’ve not argued otherwise but that’s precisely the point, HR and the IPP signed up to remain in the UK so again logically by your line they were all unionists, not just Redmond. But that isn’t how it was understood at the time or indeed by most of us subsequently.

One could support Home Rule and be Republican, one could even support the Free State a decade later and claim the same thing. I think that there’s a danger in people becoming trapped in certain labels and not getting that there was more nuance to it.

Theres no point in arguing because the post 21 dispensation saw a de facto HR parliament run by unionism that meant they were happy with HR in 1914 or 1917. Its not like and like. Unionism settled for that because they had no choice just as they jettisoned three counties of ulster because if they wanted a long lasting majority in Ulster they had no choice.

The ‘unhappiness’ of a majority of (Protestant) loyalism with Home Rule wasn’t that it was dividing them from Westminster – the quasi-colonial Dublin Castle setup already did that – but that ‘Home Rule means Rome Rule’, as the rather famous jingle went. If you were a Catholic loyalist then Home Rule was right up your street, and completely unthreatening. Catholic sentiments and separatism sentiments weren’t the same thing.

If you think HR and the IIP are essentially unionist (as distinct from er home rule) this seems to me to be a shift from your original position which I interpreted as being g Redmond was unionist but HR wasn’t. Tbh I can’t see how that line of argument is useful in terms of explaining the politics of that period and after.

Again, I’m not talking about the IPP (many of who were still Fenians or separatists of various stripes) but the Redmondites, a specific faction within that party. It was also an *extraordinary* departure for the IPP to be not only supporting the British Empire in its war but also encouraging recruitment, which are the acts of clear loyalists. This is the reason that the malicious statements from the Freeman’s Journal in 1915, giving ludicrous supposed last words from O’Donovan Rossa in support of both, were received with such anger in Ireland (this is also the last time I fancy repeating myself on either point).

Few who supported HR would have understood themselves as functionally unionist and I’ll bet next to no unionists considered themselves home rulers. Redmond tried to resile to some extent but wasn’t allowed to but even that doesn’t prove he was a unionist just a not terribly great tactician. One has to ask what did Redmond want and clearly he did not want the union as was. He wanted a modified dispensation. This was shaped by circumstance and again we both agree it was inadequate but it was not unionism as understood at the time. Again I started this by noting how concepts shift.

Redmond never, in all his political career that I’m aware of, called for breaking the Union. Home Rule was entirely set within that framework (how could it be otherwise, coming as a ‘gift’ of the Imperial Parliament). What Redmond wanted was an arrangement where the expectant anglicised Irish Catholic middle class assumed the levers of power, privilege and patronage. When the price of that became partitioning the country, he didn’t hesitate. He was utterly opposed to separatism. He was by 1914 an enthusiastic support of the Empire, its wars and its army, some of his own family going to fight as British soldiers. Please tell me how that’s not a loyalist as understood by any reasonable person when describing politics within the British Empire.

Just on the IPPs popularity or otherwise in 1918 it still after everything received 20% plus of the vote.

Because this thread is starting to make me cranky, I’m just going to ask what seems to me the obvious question here: citation, please.

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WorldbyStorm - July 25, 2017

I think you ignore s basic dynamic here as well as effectively arguing two sides of the issue when it suits you ie that HR is unionism and that it isn’t unionism or now that it is Redmondist factions that are unionist. That’s too many bites of the cherry in a discussion for me to feel its worth engaging much further than this (by the way re 1918 check out the percentage election votes, not that it makes a massive difference given it was first past the post but it is an interesting fact). But I’ll sum up, Redmond faced a British govt that refused to implement HR at all first and then later refused to implement it on an all island basis and every time he went back he got less. Small wonder to validate his life’s work he kept upping the ante to the point of arguing for participation in the war etc. The ground he was on kept growing smaller and arguably he was trapped in a delusion that the British had to concede something. I don’t think it is necessary to see Redmond as malign or a unionist at all to acknowledge that and to see he was woefully wrong. He was a man if his class, his party, his time and his personality. There’s no great surprise his brand if conciliation failed given his immediate political opponents had neither the inclination or necessity to conciliate.

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EWI - July 25, 2017

An even-handed historical commentary must incorporate facts. So let’s look at the broader picture. Ulster loyalism arose in the late 19th century, as a response to the Home Rule movement and the emergence of Catholic Irish nationalism.In the north the Protestant majority rejected the Irish Parliamentary Party of the 19th and early 20th century and the Republicans of the twentieth. Northern Protestants formed a bloc in favour of the Union with Great Britain. This Unionist bloc legitimised their discrimination against the Catholic and nationalist people in colonialist and racist language. Within this bloc was a distinct layer called ‘loyalists’ notably consisting of some working class elements.<

I rather think that you’re wrong here – the usage of ‘loyalists’ to merely denote unionists of a working class background is a rather more modern invention, and specifically within the context of Northern Ireland.

Still, EWI, all things considered, there is no credible evidence to suggest that Redmond was a Loyalist, capitalised or not. On the contrary, he was their opponent. Fact.

Because I’m starting to get tired of repeating myself, some cut and pasting from above:

“Redmond never, in all his political career that I’m aware of, called for breaking the Union. Home Rule was entirely set within that framework (how could it be otherwise, coming as a ‘gift’ of the Imperial Parliament). What Redmond wanted was an arrangement where the expectant anglicised Irish Catholic middle class assumed the levers of power, privilege and patronage. When the price of that became partitioning the country, he didn’t hesitate. He was utterly opposed to separatism. He was by 1914 an enthusiastic support of the Empire, its wars and its army, some of his own family going to fight as British soldiers. Please tell me how that’s not a loyalist as understood by any reasonable person when describing politics within the British Empire.”

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EWI - July 26, 2017

I think you ignore s basic dynamic here as well as effectively arguing two sides of the issue when it suits you ie that HR is unionism and that it isn’t unionism or now that it is Redmondist factions that are unionist. That’s too many bites of the cherry in a discussion for me to feel its worth engaging much further than this

Now, hang on here – I’m going to insist that you go back and look at the terms used in the thread, and who by. I’ve been presented with conflations of all sorts of things by other people, so it’s hardly good faith here to strike a pose over the fact that I’ve had to bring in other terminology myself to try to convey my meaning to people who just aren’t getting it (the identification of ‘loyalism’ with the working class, an anachronistic modern shorthand, is just one particular offender among many).

(by the way re 1918 check out the percentage election votes, not that it makes a massive difference given it was first past the post but it is an interesting fact).

I’ve asked you twice already for where you’re getting your figures, and for good reason – (i) there was a broad pattern of strategic unionist voting for the IPP against SF (Brian Hanley, if he’s still reading, will confirm this) and (ii) votes weren’t counted for constituencies which the IPP or Unionists just gave up as hopelessly favouring SF (this is the basis of Myers’ utterly misleading argument about the 1918 results).

But I’ll sum up, Redmond faced a British govt that refused to implement HR at all first and then later refused to implement it on an all island basis and every time he went back he got less.

Redmond came back to Ireland waving the Irish Council Bill in 1907 as a substitute for Home Rule, as I see no-one here denying. He was only thwarted by a revolt in his own party, chiefly by the YIB (including the likes of the Kettles and Thomas McDonagh). He himself agreed to the partition of Ulster later on, abandoning the country to sectarian carve-up to enable a much watered-down version of Home Rule (and it’s notable how hostile parts of his own party turned after this betrayal). There is no, none, suggestion that Redmond wanted anything beyond that, certainly not a break in the British and imperial link. So much for ‘no man has the right…’, etc.

Small wonder to validate his life’s work he kept upping the ante to the point of arguing for participation in the war etc. The ground he was on kept growing smaller and arguably he was trapped in a delusion that the British had to concede something.

I’m sorry, but this passage makes no sense at all. Redmond had his partitionist ‘Home Rule’ on the books, which we know he had accepted (as he had accepted even less not seven years before), just delayed for the duration of the war. What ‘ground’ are you trying to make out he was on…? What are you claiming that the British were going to concede?

I don’t think it is necessary to see Redmond as malign or a unionist at all to acknowledge that and to see he was woefully wrong. He was a man if his class, his party, his time and his personality. There’s no great surprise his brand if conciliation failed given his immediate political opponents had neither the inclination or necessity to conciliate.

I’m sorry, but I’m going to need to see some evidence here of this ‘conciliatory’ Redmond (don’t believe everything you read in the Irish Times), starting with just exactly who you believe he was trying to reconcile with. Certainly not Ulster Unionism, against which he wanted to arm Devlin’s Hibernians, nor with the Irish-Irelanders/republicans whom he clearly regarded with implacable hostility and wanted the British to execute in the aftermath of 1916. Not southern Protestantism either – the letters of Redmond and his followers are full of obsession with sectarian jockeying for advantage, something conspicuously absent from the writings of his republican rivals. His internal opponents? The AFIL was bloodily beaten out of the party at the ‘Baton Convention’.

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WorldbyStorm - July 26, 2017

I’m still unable to work out what your uses of the terms loyalist and unionist are and consequently it is difficult to apply them to your argument. To me it is clear HR and Redmond were neither unionist nor loyalist in the sense unionism was. They worked within and accepted the reality if British power but what they sought was entirely different to unionism then. One could argue at a stretch Redmond was loyalist but not in the sense of then existing loyalism, ie he was willing to stop at HR of whatver flavour but if he was loyalist then so was HR as a whole – and one has to keep in mind a southern HR setup was also anathema to the British and unionists – hence why Bruton is so wrong, Britain wasnt even able to give HR in any tangible form, and consequently Redmond’s absurd efforts to paint himself and HR as one with Britain (including supporting recruitment) in order to generate support for it even in weakened form.

But even the truncated HR of partition was still HR.

Re conciliation – I use the term in the sense he sought an agreement first and foremost with Britain, thereafter presumably with unionism to the extent it would be possible to blunt its propensity to arms. Looking at him and his career I’d tend to the view he kept trying to work formulations that might just gain some degree of local power while keeping Britain on board, minimalist as well as maximalist formulations, but nothing stuck, it was arguably an impossible task and he (and here I do agree with you) ensconced in the Westminster parliamentary system could not realise or would not realise that. There was no formulation that would satisfy the British and it took force of arms to wrest even limited autonomy from them.

Finally the results of 1918 in percentage terms of the vote are widely available. No mystery there. And my point is not to support or defend HR or Redmond (who I have little or no time for full stop) but to suggest that given choices between Republicanism, Unionism and HR clearly even that late in the day people saw sufficient distinctions between those political strands that reasonably big cohorts went into each camp (and HR was not regarded as synonymous with unionism of the day).

One other point I’d make is that I don’t think much of this was avoidable. I think it took 1916 to trigger the dynamics that led to partial independence. Redmond and the IIP were too compromised and unable to step outside their comfort zone to take a leading role and other forces were too weak until 16 and after. Redmond certainly didn’t help but there’s and argument that the recruitment stance he took actually assisted in alienating people from HR. Unfortunately that was at the cost of Irish lives.

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12. Phil F - July 23, 2017

Interesting piece by Workers Fight, the british co-thinkers of Lutte Ouvriere, on how Corbyn’s Labur remains wedded to capitalism and the british far left remains wedded to Labour: https://rdln.wordpress.com/2017/07/23/corbyns-labour-still-wedded-to-capitalism-the-british-far-left-still-wedded-to-labour/

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13. Phil F - July 23, 2017

In Ireland, I guess Labour is mainly notorious for austerity. Over here in NZ the main campaign of the Labour party over the past two years (it’s in opposition) has been demonising and scapegoating people with “Chinese-sounding surnames”. Anti-Chinese racism goes right back to the very roots of the NZ Labour Party.

The Labour Party and anti-Chinese racism

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14. Phil F - July 23, 2017

On Friday night a state of emergency was declared in Dunedin due to flooding. However I was at a very interesting talk in the public library on Corbyn, Labour, British imperialism, the working class, the left. . . a lot of ground. I asked the speaker for the text which he sent on and so we’ve stuck it up on Redline. Quite different perspective than much of the British left re Corbyn and Labour (much of the left over there just ignore the connection between the Labour Party and Brit imperialism:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2017/07/23/corbyns-labour-british-imperialism-and-the-working-class/

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Simon weisvicetal - July 24, 2017

What a heap of ultra-ultra-leftist shite

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15. Michael Carley - July 23, 2017

Paul Mason’s play about the present state of chassis is worth watching

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08zj2wq/performance-live-why-its-kicking-off-everywhere

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16. meru - July 24, 2017

wbs, might any of your contributors check the private security industry that is operating in the present day in this country.

http://www.netwatch.com based in Carlow, and who monitor 10K? sites.

http://www.psa.gov.ie the Licensing authority, based far, far, away in
Tipperary. (and should be based in Dublin?).

http://www.G4S.ie monitor 40K sites.

http://www.noonan.ie

http://www.isia.ie irish security industry assoc., based in Malahide.

These are an overwhelming counter-force in this country. And mostly are under the direction of firms etc. who are themselves allied to banks.

The media seem not to report on these. And also, just how many people do they take to Court?

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17. meru - July 24, 2017

hi there. are some comments here, not posted?

i.e. meru, 21st and 24th July, ’17.

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WorldbyStorm - July 24, 2017

Caught in spam due to links on holiday but will sort it out

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18. Jolly Red Giant - July 24, 2017

Protest tomorrow at the CCJ as another group of Jobstown defendants are due to appear for their pre-trial hearing.

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19. Brian Hanley - July 25, 2017

Pearse’s comments on the UVF were not just rhetoric. The veteran IRB man and Snn Féiner Pat McCartan gave his car to the local UVF in Tyrone so they could use it in the Larne gun running. Casement publicly lauded this action to American republican audiences.

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EWI - July 25, 2017

Pearse’s comments on the UVF were not just rhetoric. The veteran IRB man and Snn Féiner Pat McCartan gave his car to the local UVF in Tyrone so they could use it in the Larne gun running. Casement publicly lauded this action to American republican audiences.

Firstly, the IRB were more than enthusiastic to see the Ulster Unionists succeed (how could they not? It blew the door down to creating and arming the Irish Volunteers). Secondly, the IRB – naively or not – saw the conflict not in the IPP’s sectarian terms but as a national liberation struggle (to use the modern parlance). The republican approach is better – getting caught up in Catholic versus Protestant is disastrous and leaves the British ultimately still in control.

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