Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Martin McGuiness

Probably just time for the tea to settle before it all kicks off again - history writes it this way.

Beneath the surface the anger and killings carry on albeit on a lesser scale it is a never ending indigenous problem.

Simon Reeve did a very incisive program on the area a few months ago.

I love both north and south and the people and have worked in both areas and failed to understand the violence.

The Simon Reeve programme was very insightful.
I enjoyed it.

His interviews on the bogside were illuminating and very worthy of viewing if you are interested in the current situation.

My family are originally from Cork so I have always been interested in the history of S. Ireland.

Much of it quite sobering to say the very least.

You have to wonder if God has a sick sense of humour. On the same day that McGuiness' coffin was being carried through the streets with large crowds and lots of flags, a policeman and and several innocent bystanders were killed by a another terrorist.

Its not god its the SICK world we live in.

It's just another timely stark reminder that he was a common murderer in the name of terrorism and certainly not a freedom fighter or statesman.

God made it though didn't he, so he's responsible isn't he......although I guess the 30month, 30,000 mile warranty ran out some time ago.

Or does he say to his angels about mankind "they all do that sir"

WARNING

EPIC THREAD DRIFT



I bet some of his angels are now saying "it's all God's fault, this thing about men having free will was a stupid concept from the beggining. We should make them mindless animals again, better yet just servants without a choice, and if all fails lets turn them all to dust ... they're a useless faulty creation anyway."

Then some others will reply "No need to bother turning them all to dust, they're already working on it and it won't last long until they do it to themselves."

If the 'respect all others' knob was turned up more it might work.

A couple of very interesting posts in this thread. Pandy's and Alistair's in particular resonate with me. I grew up the son of a British Army infantry officer, who did his National Service in Malaya in the late 50s and later served as both a company and battalion commander in Northern Ireland in the 70s and 80s.

I spent a couple of years living on base in Ballykelly at the end of the 1970s; like Alistair, I can remember the palpable sense of tension when "the men" were off living in a sanger in South Armagh, and recall the sense of relief when the airborne taxis brought them home. Habits picked up then, as a not-quite-teenager, are still followed now: little things like always crossing a room to close the curtains at night, before coming back to the doorway to turn the light on so as not to present a silhouette to a sniper.

I wholeheartedly agree that it's rich of Republican terrorists-turned-politicians to be baying for "justice" through trials of RUC officers and former servicemen, when there was such a big deal made out of commuting sentences of (both Republican and Loyalist) prisoners in the work up to the peace process. Nobody's end is served by raking over 30-year-old evidence - too many people will be upset whatever the outcome of any trial, and it won't do anybody any good at all to have more people imprisoned as a result of the Troubles.

It's also worth pointing out, I think, that it's far more complicated than "Catholic=Republican" and "Protestant=Unionist." The very term "sectarianism" paints the Northern Irish situation as a battle between Catholic and Protestant - I think it has always been much more temporal than spiritual, and the veil of religion has been used to mask the very earthly politics and economics behind much of the Troubles. The combatants on both sides long ago abandoned any semblance of allegiance to any concept of Christianity. On both sides, they maintain spurious links to one Church or another in a convenient attempt to try to normalise or excuse otherwise abnormal and inexcusable actions.

Throughout most of the last couple of centuries, the heads of both Churches, as Archbishops of Armagh, have at various points been both responsible for feeding the fire of sectarianism, and instrumental in dousing it. It took a lot of effort for the Churches to reach across the aisle. In particular, Robin Eames on the Church of Ireland side and Cahal Daly on the Catholic side did a huge amount of work, often in the teeth of strong opposition, to promote peace in the early 1990s, and the people of Northern Ireland are greatly indebted to both. More so, certainly, than to Mr McGuinness.

Doug - a very "well said" to you!! Few people abroad actually realise that the troubles have little to do with religion, and more to do with pure thuggery, protection money and gang warfare

Thank you for your comments