'Brotherly Love': The Irish Question...

[Conor]

Originally Posted by dry suit diver

i have worked with many ulstermen and always get their opinions about NI and yes they all agree that it is the work of a small minority who carry the idiocy on and on.

one said that all the politicians are like school kids when it comes to agreeing to things.

everybody needs to look forward in the hope a solution can be found and i do hopre one is found but the way things are carrying on it doesnt look hopeful hence my hole in the arse comment.

please give us your thoughts on how the situation may be resolved

Oops, my last comments weren't aimed at you, they were intended as a comment on the complexity of the situation. I had great hopes for the peace process but the lobotomy-tastic rise in popularity of Sf & DUP nicely scuppered that.

When talking about a place where even the place names (ulster v NI or Derry v Londonderry) can not be agreed by the main protagonists it is hard to envisage an 'easy way out'. Lets just hope that the next elections reverse the poles (or polls, either works) when people realise the brinkmanship of the previous encumbants nearly cost them the peace.

[Dinger]

Thieves in Co. Down have stolen hundreds of pounds worth of Easter Eggs and chocolate biscuits. The burglary, which occured in Newry at 3.30am, was caught on CCTV tapes which the police are examining.

The hardened criminals, thought to be from the Portadown based LVF stole £400 worth of Cadburys easter eggs and 48 boxes of luxury chocolate biscuits.

Dinger

Can't write comedy like it

[dry suit diver]

Originally Posted by Conor

Oops, my last comments weren't aimed at you, they were intended as a comment on the complexity of the situation. I had great hopes for the peace process but the lobotomy-tastic rise in popularity of Sf & DUP nicely scuppered that.

When talking about a place where even the place names (ulster v NI or Derry v Londonderry) can not be agreed by the main protagonists it is hard to envisage an 'easy way out'. Lets just hope that the next elections reverse the poles (or polls, either works) when people realise the brinkmanship of the previous encumbants nearly cost them the peace.

no offence taken just as a ex-pat (scuse the piss poor pun) thought you may have had more valid points to make than me.

[Conor]

lol, ex pat but current Paddy, I like it

[Mick F]

Originally Posted by Dinger

I for one do hope that there may be peace here, and would like to believe that one day there will be - although I have my doubts and to be honest don't think I will be alive to witness it.

Regards you comment on 'Christians' causing the problem, don't even give them that label - there is nothing 'Christian' about some moron who creates his own 'Chruch' and then uses said 'Church' to promote feelings of hatred and bigotry to those of his 'flock' that are to stupid to make decisions of their own. There is nothing Christian about the likes of Paisley and Willie McCrae - they are both total and utter bigots hiding behind the cloak of Christianity. I have more respect for some eejit who is prepared to stand up and admit what he is than any of these pricks who say they are here working for the Lord. Total and utter pieces of crap the lot of them. They preach nothing but hatred and do it from the Pulpit, which is much worse than some twat who was brought up in somewhere like the Falls or Shankill and is to stupid and to make up his own mind. My biggest issue with the UUP/DUP/Free Presbyterian wallahs is that they behave as holier than thou, when it is them that are encouraging these silly young men to go out and pick up a gun and 'take action'. Getting someone to pull a trigger for you is worse than doing it yourself. Paisely and his team have more blood on their hands than the average butcher but the biggest problem is that he will never see it. There is more religion in Ireland than they know what do with but it aint Christianity - the two are nothing alike. Some of the worst bigots I have ever met in Ireland and elsewhere are Church goers. My much better half is a Minister and some of the most diffucult and stubborn people she has ever worked with were members of a congregation (and she works for a charity as a mediator and spends about 60% of her time with the UVF and IRA groups). These people aint true Christians - they may be religious but they are not Christians. Who am I to comment? Well I know one thing, The Big Man in the sky never, ever taught us to hate or treat anyone, no matter colour or creed with any difference - "Love thy neighbour as thyself" A friend of mine who is a minister got hate mail from a member of his congregation regarding his Jamacian wife and his mixed race children! Christains indeed!!!

Dinger

Digger mate, I can't give you any more green at the moment, but I couldn't agree more.

Porg used to have a signature which said something like "I'm trying to see things from your point of view, but I can't get my head that far up my arse." Now don't that just say it all for Gerry & big Ian et al.

Vicious thugs to a man (or should that be coward)

[Steve L.]

Bloody heavy stuff. Calling Ulster, `Ulster` was always misleading as there were a few counties ommited from the ancient Irish province when it was left in the custody of us Brits. I think Cavan and Monaghan were certainly two, and maybe Roscommon and Donegal may have been another two.

Anyway, why did Eamon Devalera send Michael Collins, Arthur Griffith and others over to negotiate a treaty with Lord Birkenhead when he knew full well the Brits would not hand over the whole island. Maybe he`d rather Collins and Griffith face the wrath of the anti treaty mob that he.

I`m off to Dublin in March and hope to visit Collin`s grave at Glasnevin Cemetary . How do I get there from central Dublin ?

[Mick F]

Originally Posted by Steve L.

I`m off to Dublin in March and hope to visit Collin`s grave at Glasnevin Cemetary . How do I get there from central Dublin ?

Follw the road signs for Finglas (N2) from the City Centre. You will pass Phibsboro shopping centre to your left and shortly after the road follows around a left hand bend. Keep following the road and after a couple of hundred metres you will see a high wall to your right. This is the cemetary. Look out for the right turn into the gate and (tiny) car park.

Alternatively take a bus. Go to Parnell St (top of O'Connell St & turn left.) Take a 40, 40A, 40B, 40C, or 40D. Don't bother asking the driver as many of the Eastern European drivers are polite but can't speak English, and the Irish drivers can (just about) speak English, but their first language is wanker!! Just watch out for the landmarks above. There is a stop at the cemetary gates.

HTH

[Mr T.]

Outcry as Sinn Fein chief defends IRA execution
By Thomas Harding, Ireland Correspondent
(Filed: 20/01/2005)

Sinn Fein was criticised yesterday after its chairman claimed that the IRA's execution of a mother of 10 was "not a crime".

Parties across the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland lined up to condemn Mitchell McLaughlin's televised comments in which he tried to defend the Provisionals' murder of Jean McConville in 1972.

Her son, Michael McConville, said Sinn Fein "should be holding their heads in shame" and called on Mr McLaughlin to resign.

Pressure is growing on the Government to exclude the IRA's political wing from power sharing to save the moribund political process.

Mrs McConville, 37, a Roman Catholic convert and widow, was kidnapped in front of her children from Divis Flats, west Belfast, and tortured for being an alleged informer before being shot.

For 30 years the IRA denied any part in her murder until after the Good Friday Agreement when she was named as one of the "Disappeared", among a dozen people secretly executed.

At the time of the abduction, Ed Moloney's book Secret History of the IRA, claimed Gerry Adams was commander of the IRA's Belfast Brigade and "it is inconceivable her murder could have been carried out without his knowledge".

Mr Adams has denied ever being a member of the IRA and of having any involvement in the murder.

Michael McDowell, the Irish justice minister, asked Mr McLaughlin on RTE's Questions and Answers programme if he thought the killing was a crime. "No, I do not," Mr McLaughlin said, having earlier accepted that it was "wrong".

Mrs McConville's murder was not a crime because it was authorised by an IRA court martial? Mr McDowell suggested sarcastically.

"Yes, and I believe it happened in the context of conflict," Mr McLaughlin said.

[Dinger]

[Conor]

Lmao