54 Comments

• DanOLoingsigh | Jan 08, 2013, 03:43 PM EST

  ancavker - I agree most people just wanted to ignore events ‘up north’…while getting ‘upset’ about issues far away…let’s not forget the Dunne’s Stores strike..

• seanomelb | Jan 07, 2013, 06:27 PM EST

  Woundeknee the same happened in Auistralia. We were shunned by the Irish establishment, embassy and badgered by the police doing England dirty work.

• WoundedKnee | Jan 07, 2013, 02:38 PM EST

  I lived in New York for a good part of the 1980s, and I was active in a support group for the Birmingham Six. I remember how we were shunned by the Irish Consulate in NYC, who refused to even meet with us. Various relatives of individuals of the Birmingham Six came to NYC during those years, and they were universally ostracized by the Consulate. Anyone who contacted the Consulate to express concern about the Birmingham Six was put on a black-list, indeed there was some evidence that they had their phones tapped. (I stress I am NOT referring to tracing people making threatening calls). The Consulate also contacted the offices of Governor Hugh Carey and Senator Moynihan and told these great (sic) Irish-Americans not to meet with us. There were few lower lifes at that time than the Irish foreign service. They have a long anglophilic tradition, as even came out recently in the accounts of how they tried to derail Irish government policy at the time of the Malvinas war. It is a testament to the utter mediocrity of the Irish political and journalistic class that guys like Carey and Moynihan are remembered as friends of Ireland. They weren't, and neither was the Irish Foreign Service.

• ancavker | Jan 07, 2013, 01:40 PM EST

  Dan: I was in Ireland every summer in the late 70's early 80's as I am every summer. And I can tell you first hand that there was to me no mention of northern Ireland, or the plight of the Catholic/Nationalist people in the north.It was different in the border areas (where Iam from), as they were far more affected than further south. But it was there, in the media, and among most Irish people in general. Any expression of sympathy or disagreement with British policies in the north meant you were a provo supporter. And I can tell you that more then a few Irish people in the south thought that Donegal was in northern Ireland. The fact remains that the Irish government and Irish people for the most part ignored what was going on in the north. They did however facny themselves as experts regarding the Middle East and Central America.

• DanOLoingsigh | Jan 07, 2013, 11:29 AM EST

  Knee – I was, and am disagreeing with your views that ‘expressing sympathy for Northern Catholics’ were censored, and say you are conflating Northern Catholics with Northern republicans, also that southerners were ‘ignorant’ of northern issues. They knew only too well the methods used by PIRA. The SDLP had plenty of exposure, certainly around the time of the ‘New Ireland Forum’…partisan claims to the contrary are, in your words, just ‘assertions’…those are my recollection, which I already agreed was by nature selective, as is your own.

• ancavker | Jan 07, 2013, 10:37 AM EST

  Dan: Censorship is wrong, period. No matter how distasteful, the subject might be. The Irish people were treated like children by the Irish government in the 1970's80's. And of course we had that great "Irish" statesman Conor Cruise; now there was a man with mammy issues!

• curtisjohnson | Jan 06, 2013, 09:02 PM EST

  "WHEREFORE, unless and until it becomes necessary to oppress its own “citizens” and/or occupied indigenous populations (at which time diverse pretenses shall be put forth on an ad hoc basis), the british terror state shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble.”

• seanomelb | Jan 06, 2013, 05:42 PM EST

  I wonder what's the first amendment of Dano's british constitution?

• Madeliene | Jan 06, 2013, 03:26 PM EST

  Sad, no Libraries, no books in England.

• WoundedKnee | Jan 06, 2013, 11:15 AM EST

  I knew that Oloingsigh was wrong--I will accuse him of selective memory--not falsehood, when he claimed that " "The SDLP had far more RTE airtime than any unionist party". And quite fortuitously, some hours after my last posting here I happened to be listening online to an RTE interview in Irish with the writer Alan Titley. And guess what! Titley in the course of the interview spoke of working in the (English language) News section of RTE during the 1980s. He described the repressive atmosphere, imposed by the government but eagerly implemented by what was known as the Workers Party, a right-wing former socialist group whose leaders now dominate the Irish Labor party. But here's the point: Titley described how one day at that time he met SDLP leader John Hume, who complained about about being frozen out of the Southern media. Hume asked Titley "Do they even know I exist down here?" You see, OLoingish, if you know Irish, rather than just posture under the Irish language version of your name, it opens up a whole new reality and view of the world!

• curtisjohnson | Jan 06, 2013, 10:07 AM EST

  Dano is in his own brit troll fantasy world, as usual. The draconian measures taken by the british terror state to repress the reporting of the atrocities committed against the indigenous community has long since been exposed (it went far beyond the actual legal restrictions which were in and of themselves remarkable - I guess they were formulated under that "unwritten constitution Dano always raves about).

• seamus60 | Jan 05, 2013, 09:34 PM EST

  spot on about Maloney Woundedknee. Even though he`s now a problem for the same brand of republicanism because he keeps writing the truth as it comes to him.

• seamus60 | Jan 05, 2013, 09:28 PM EST

  But not a shinner Bobby other wise you wouldn`t have said what you did.

• WoundedKnee | Jan 05, 2013, 12:35 PM EST

  2/ Ed Maloney wrote (it's available on line): "When I started my life as a journalist working for Dublin newspapers the conventional view was that if you wanted to write about the Birmingham Six or Guildford Four that was tantamount to saying you were a fellow traveler of the IRA. It was the same if you wanted to write about the IRA. The reasoning was very simple and went like this: You had to be a fellow traveler because how else could you write about such people unless you talked to them like they were human beings and not the mindless monsters they undoubtedly were. And if you did that, then you must secretly sympathize with them. It was media McCarthyism Irish-style."

• WoundedKnee | Jan 05, 2013, 12:33 PM EST

  1/ OLoinsigh: You say "Again, I disagree…most southerners were completely against the bombing campaign." Who are you disagreeing with? I never said anything about southerners supporting the bombing campaign. They obviously didn't; neither did I, or many other members of Irish Northern Aiod.. So it's quite ludicrous that you would set up a straw man to "disagree" with. Disagree with what I say, not with what you invent. As to your claim that the SDLP "had far more RTE airtime than any unionist party", that's just an assertion on your part, and I think it's wrong. In fact I seem to remember some SDLP guy complaining about the unchallenged access people like Paisley had to the Southern state broadcaster, though it would be too much bother to me to go research that. But your description of state censorship is quite mendacious. It did not affect solely members of the IRA, and indeed few could have objected to the government's right if it stopped there. But it affected any and all who expressed doubts about the government policies, extending to academics, artists (Robert Ballagh, Christy Moore) journalists and union members. Even Tim Pat Coogan, recently in the news because of the initial denial of his US visa application, and author of a number of books on Irish history, found himself on the government black list. Of course, the government was abetted in all of this by utterly spineless and incompetent Irish "journalists", and a corrupt leadership of the journalists' union. An exception to this was the respected Ed Maloney. As as I think I am out of space I will write cite him separately.

• bobby | Jan 05, 2013, 09:33 AM EST

  No Seamus I'm a Londoner.

• seamus60 | Jan 05, 2013, 08:10 AM EST

  Dan. Nice to see you agree Nationalists were abuse in the North all along. Just have to get you to agree they still are.

• darragh S | Jan 05, 2013, 05:45 AM EST

  Controversial not Confidential.

• darragh S | Jan 05, 2013, 05:43 AM EST

  DanOLoingsigh, WoundedKnee etc. The South are different from those in the North anyway. In the South IRA factions are very much the minority. You have to look at the Treaty period and the Civil war that followed to understand how Ireland its self will be divided no matter what happens with the Unionists. The Republic of Ireland is a modern European state and its responsibilities are similar to all other similar EU members. As far as Security goes the Republic of Ireland see's the IRA as a threat. Maybe not as much as the Unionists do however The Republic of Ireland that emerged from the Irish Civil war remains and were at odds with the more extreme brethren and remain so. The reasons are similar remembering that when the IRB and the IRA sacked all the British Garrisons towards the end of the Uprising and when the British finally left the Curragh etc the IRB in and around Lenster took control of the weaponry. Had the IRA been better supplied and equipped after the agreement to end hostilities with the Monarch and Whitehall they may have defeated the IRB and gone on to call London's bluff whom were depleted and tired from fighting in World War 1. And you Americans let it happen anyway because the people we sent to New York and Boston ie the 181st and the 69th infantry love America more than Ireland hence the lack of dedication to the cause. (outrageous and confidential sure that makes it seem funny to me, don't think it otherwise).

• seanomelb | Jan 05, 2013, 01:22 AM EST

  A well worded British apology Dano.

• seamus60 | Jan 04, 2013, 09:21 PM EST

  So you`re not a shinner Bobby.

• bobby | Jan 04, 2013, 07:36 PM EST

  She was ignorant about a lot of things, the dictator was a disaster for us.

• DanOLoingsigh | Jan 04, 2013, 06:09 PM EST

  Knee – I read your post, thank you; all recollections are by nature selective. I was just giving my own impressions…I was disagreeing with your prognosis that the southern populace were in ignorance of what was going on in the north… The SDLP had far more RTE airtime than any unionist party, are you saying they did not speak on behalf of ‘Northern Catholics’? Again, I disagree…most southerners were completely against the bombing campaign, and in particular that on the UK mainland…while few families had connections ‘up north’, many had close relatives living in UK cities, and feared for their safety whenever the ‘heroes’ mounted an attack…events such as the Herrema kidnap gave the south a taste of what SF/IRA were about at that time, and no government worthy of the name could allow the fellow-travellers of such gangs the opportunity to try and justify their activities over the airwaves… the 1975 Broadcasting (Amendment) Act made that crystal clear, and the ban stayed in force until they started down the constitutional road, and finally recognised that consent was needed for any future UI.

• WoundedKnee | Jan 04, 2013, 04:12 PM EST

  Oloinsigh--It looks like you didn't read my post, or if you did you failed to understand it. My post showed how divorced Southerners were from the North, and indeed quite ignorant of it. This ignorance was encouraged by the Southern administration, which actively censored any opinion that might be construed as expressing sympathy for the Northern Catholics. In contrast, Loyalist politicians had unlimited access to the Southern state radio and TV, and were guaranteed soft interviews. You appear to be unaware of that tradition of state censorship, which commenced in the early 1970s and ran for two decades. Since I never depicted the Southerners as straining at the leash to get involved in the North, you are disagreeing with something I didn't say. But I do say that there was a leash on the Southerners, even if most made no effort to break free of it. You utterly failed to address the question of how ill-informed--and why--the Southerners were as regards the North, as exemplified by the incomprehension when Sands won his election. Maybe you need to read a bit more carefully before selectively "recollecting" things.

• IrelandNorth | Jan 04, 2013, 02:52 PM EST

  She did say NI was as British as Finchley. Then purloined EU funds for NI, telling them we (the English) need them. Anyone know the ethnic breakdown of Finchley in the 1980s?

• DanOLoingsigh | Jan 04, 2013, 02:47 PM EST

  My recollection of things ‘down south’ in the 1980’s is quite different to that of Woundedknee…most people were only too aware of the daily atrocities up north…and wanted to have little to do with it. There was understandable fear of the conflict coming south, and their view of most ‘northerners’ was that they deserved each other…’sure they’re all mad up there’ was a common phrase. Of course there was a minority of ‘activists’ who wanted a more ‘republican’ stance, but the great majority looked on in horror, and quietly resolved to have nothing to do with anything ‘northern’.

• DanOLoingsigh | Jan 04, 2013, 02:36 PM EST

  Seamus, agree completely...

• DanOLoingsigh | Jan 04, 2013, 02:34 PM EST

  Curtis...No, Bunreacht na hÉireann ARTICLE 2 – ‘It is the entitlement and birthright of every person born in the island of Ireland to be part of the Irish Nation’… makes you wonder why some ‘so called’ republicans see fit to deny the key legislation of the country, eh???

• curtisjohnson | Jan 03, 2013, 11:32 PM EST

  "It’s reassuring to hear support for the rights of unionists to live in the place of their birth…unionists are entitled to protection under the constitution…" Are you referring to that "unwritten" constitution again, Dano?

• seamus60 | Jan 03, 2013, 07:17 PM EST

  Dan. All people should be entitled to protection from the Gov of the day. Regardless of creed or colour. Just as Nationalists should have been all along in the North.

• DanOLoingsigh | Jan 03, 2013, 06:38 PM EST

  It’s reassuring to hear support for the rights of unionists to live in the place of their birth…unionists are entitled to protection under the constitution…

• FallsRNat | Jan 03, 2013, 06:21 PM EST

  sirpeter is back

• seamus60 | Jan 03, 2013, 01:32 PM EST

  Darragh S. I don`t think these wars are started through stupidity. Rather through the greed of the few. We are just the stupid folk who give most for least return when the dirt hits the fan.

• seamus60 | Jan 03, 2013, 01:26 PM EST

  Maggie was indeed a swine. But take away the fact she let the first 4 Hungerstrikers die she was much the same as those before her. Anyone remember Roy Mason.

• merefalow | Jan 03, 2013, 07:38 AM EST

  she was ignorant period,SHE REPRESENTED A NARROW BELIGERENT FLAG WAVING HORRIBLE NATIONALISM THAT REFUSED TO ACKNOWLEDGE ANY OTHER PEOPLE ARGUMENTS OR RIGHTS.AS THEY LAY CLAIM TO A LAND MASS 9.000 MILES AWAY ORIGINALLY TAKEN BY FORCE,ON THE GROUNDS THAT THEY WISH TO STAY BRTITISH,OF COURSE THEY DO,THEY WERE PLANTED THERE AS WERE THE BOWLER HAT BROLLY WAVING OUTSPANS OF N.IRELAND,AND HAVE AS MUCH RIGHT TO BE THERE,A VIRULENT NASTY PIECE OF WORK.

• darragh S | Jan 02, 2013, 09:53 PM EST

  If she was in power now the question is would she be targeting Irish Nationlist's with Drone Strikes? These stupid types of people will just cause no end of trouble as usual. Next thing you now were fighting China and Russia again you watch.

• seamus60 | Jan 02, 2013, 03:34 PM EST

  Woundedknee. We people in the North didn`t know very much either. Private back room meetings between the likes of Mc Guinness and his MI6 buddy Micheal Oatley as far back as the seventies would not have gone down well at all. The landscape we see today would no doubt have either been very differant or come a lot earlier.

• WoundedKnee | Jan 02, 2013, 02:46 PM EST

  Maybe Thatcher didn't know much about the North, but then again neither did most people in the South of Ireland. By the time of the Hunger Strikes, censorship of the government-controlled media in the South had been institutionalized for almost a decade. Only the Unionist/Loyalist point of view could be articulated on the Dublin airwaves, with occasional openings for those Catholics who were opposed to republicanism. The government even kept files on everyone who spoke or wrote in favor of a United Ireland, or even just in favour of the Northern Catholics being treated justly. The Dublin government cultivated a climate of fear and ignorance. It is well known that the South was so divorced from the northern Catholics and what they were going thru that the people of the South were astonished when Bobby Sands won his election. RTE, the Government channel which at that time dominated everything in the South, was so out of touch that it didn't even send a reporter the 80 or so miles from Dublin to cover the election campaign. I wasn't in Ireland when Sands was elected, but I was there when his successor, a man by the name of Carron if I recall, was elected upon Sands' death. I remember being appaled by the way that election was covered in the Dublin media. They were furious when Carron was elected, by an even bigger vote than Sands had received.

• IrelandNorth | Jan 02, 2013, 02:37 PM EST

  I recall visits from a cousin of mine from England to Dublin in the early 1970s, who often spoke of how little he was taught about Ireland in the English educational system of his day. He was the son of my mother's sister who had emigrated from the Irish to the British midlands in the 1940s and married an English man there. One of the prerogatives of any given struggle is that the victors get to construct a social reality based upon their selective recollection of events - retrospectively. A common experience of ordinary British and Irish people is that they both are a byproduct of a revisionist history written by the beneficiaries of the age old enmity between the British and/or Irish Isles. Which just about accounts for the disturbing level of historical amnesia that abounds amongst younger generations. Some day the truth will out.

• seamus60 | Jan 02, 2013, 01:33 PM EST

  Pilib04. The Hungerstrikers were only in control if they knew was was going on. With the most vital information being with held they had as much access to control as I do to Gerrys fortune. Woodman. you should read up a whole lot more, the brits didn`t renage on anything at the end of the first Hungerstrike. Even though Adams and others use the face saving story to give their interferance in the second justification.

• sirpeter | Jan 02, 2013, 11:18 AM EST

  Fallsers.Stop man!! Give reality a chance. Ireland will get over this fiscal mess.It's only the ebb and flow of economics anyway.Purchasing Power Parity per Capita in the Republic is $10,000 higher than in the UK in 2011.After four years of "austerity".Naturally enough if labour costs and standards of living are too high in general and out of sink with the rest of the EU competitiveness drops with the inevitable loss of jobs.The average living standard in Greece is half that of the people of the Republic in real terms.Hence the rioting which is very understandable.But can you explain the twisted mindset of ordinary piss-poor Unionists damaging their local economy over the flying of a flag..Rioting with violence over a democratic decision.The average Irish person can take the economic hit that's forced upon them.The average Greek can't afford it forced upon them..But the average piss-poor Unionist will self-destruct their economy over the number of days a flag is flying.Unionist self-destruction at it's best.

• Smyrnian | Jan 02, 2013, 06:05 AM EST

  Pilib04 - you mean Hanoi Jane? I only recall her being worried about communist N. Vietnamese lives....

• DanOLoingsigh | Jan 02, 2013, 04:08 AM EST

  No surprise to hear that Thatcher was ignorant of Irish affairs, as were and are most of her countrymen…the average Brit isn’t really sure why NI still exists... it took the so-called ‘armed struggle’ to copper-fasten the ‘consent’ principle for a UI…something slow learning republican zealots and corrupt Haughey administrations had set their faces against...so contributing to many wasted lives on all sides.

• curtisjohnson | Jan 01, 2013, 08:47 PM EST

  fallsrat, stop with this silly charade – it’s painfully obvious you’re just a brit troll. Without the armed struggle combined with the pressure of Irish Americans, the indigenous Irish would have been ethnically cleansed from the occupied six by now. The state of the ROI is the result of the anglo oriented Dublin establishment and their industrial estate Ireland experiment followed by the forced bailout of international creditors of international banks by the Irish taxpayers.

• FallsRNat | Jan 01, 2013, 05:40 PM EST

  seano - i can trace my family history back to the IRB/GPO/Official SF, born in NI, am actually irish, not australian like yerself. The only obstacle to peace in Ireland is the republican movement, mine included, the war was kept going far too long. Now we have a totally disenfranchised 26 county state where the exodus is accelerating, no NI RC or Protestant is going to vote to join this mess. Why don't you hand back your aussie passport & get back to the mother country you so love or are u another armchair critic who professes love for ireland, but would never give up the security of the life you live now under a british monarch

• seanomelb | Jan 01, 2013, 03:49 PM EST

  It would appear thet fallsnat and phlutie have the same "ignorant gene" that thatcher suffered from. God rest the hunger strikers

• PhlutiePhan | Jan 01, 2013, 02:37 PM EST

  @Woodman: Bobby Sands was so "dignified" that he went naked in the prison compound and spread feces over everything in view. His death undoubtedly can be traced to his own aboding with filth. In 1975, I served in the Med on a cruiser. Two Brit officers came on for anti-sbu warfare training. One had lost two brothers in the Troubles. The other told me that the Brits were working to give Ireland back. However, the socialist cause of the IRA precluded a realistic deal with the Provisionals. Thatcher knew exactly what she was doing. Gerry Adams is still working for a socialist vision and not a republic. Hillary and the bois have the same grand world vision of life without religion. Marx and Lenin did not know what they were doing. Maggie did.

• Woodman | Jan 01, 2013, 02:20 PM EST

  The prison admin. negotiated with Bobby Sands during the the FIRST IRA hungerstrike. In order to prevent the loss of life Sands agreed to a deal where the republican and other political prisoners would be allowed civilian like clothing if they ended the strike. The clothing was in fact ordered but Thatcher ordered the prison officials to renege on the deal and Sands initiated and participated in another hunger strike in which he died.

• IrelandNorth | Jan 01, 2013, 02:17 PM EST

  Interesting photo. A picture paints a thousand words, indeed! Good ol' Charlie, fixing the Iron Lady in his characteristic snake-eyed target gaze, undoubtedly shaking his rattle out of frame. And poor auld Maggie, displaying all the hallmarks of advanced metal fatigue, whilst clearly under his Rasputin-esque spell. She clearly rubbed that silver teapot he gave her as a gift once too often as to let the Haughy genie escape, never to get the lid back on. What can one say about Charlie. The man who made J R Yewing look like an alter boy.

• cillowen | Jan 01, 2013, 01:40 PM EST

  none of this matters - they have their dysfunctional product talking loco nonsense. Their educated going to greener pastures daily.

• pilib04 | Jan 01, 2013, 12:12 PM EST

  FallsNRat, your comments are a calumny on the brave ten and the current leadership of Sinn Fein. The POW Hunger Strikers were in control of their Strike.

• FallsRNat | Jan 01, 2013, 12:07 PM EST

  the british offered to end the hunger strikes as confirmed by Hughes & O'Rawe, PIRA's Officer in charge & his deputy in the Maze at the time, but over ruled by Gerry & his cohorts outside prison & the hunger strikers died, looking back now, they & their ideals were betrayed not by the brits or those in the Maze.

• MacGiobuinR | Jan 01, 2013, 11:15 AM EST

  If my memory serves me still, wasn't she known as the "Iron Lady"??? I do not remember her being addressed as the Lady with a Heart or the Brainy Lady,.... she is gone so let us watch who is in the seats of power and try not to copy the mistakes of the past. Slainte!

• pilib04 | Jan 01, 2013, 10:52 AM EST

  These "state papers" also include a personal appeal to M. Thatcher from an American Actress. During the past week this was Front Page/Headline news in the Belfast Telegraph. Interesting that the Irish Voice did not pick up on it. The Guardian grabbed the BT story and ran with it. Veteran actress Jane Fonda personally lobbied former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s in a bid to end hunger strikes in Northern Ireland. According to newly-released files from Belfast Public Records Office, Fonda sent a telegram to Thatcher in May, 1981, urging the leader to reclassify all Irish republican inmates as political prisoners after a series of mass protests. The message from Fonda stated, "Please save the lives of the hunger strikers by granting them political status. The sanctity of human life must override any political considerations."