Northern Ireland leaders urge calm after night of violence

Well, it's one part Brexit, one part gross incompetence and negligence on the part of Whitehall, and one part shit-stirring on the part of right wing Irish Unionists. But it's certainly a reminder for Americans both of what the Irish came over here to get away from and of the centuries deep roots of our own racial vendettas in the deeply racist culture of the UK.

The Troubles 2: Shamrock Boogaloo

Blame other people, R2.

It's always someone else's fault.

Ireland will be one nation.

Scotland will secede.

England will be drop to a true 5th rate nation.

Ugh - a mess. It is so weird to drive down a road and have to use different currencies, cell services, insurance. Putting up barriers again is exactly what British voted for - so now they have to deal with their ignorant decisions. Just like we did with Trump.

It’s hard not to be amused when two groups of Christians try to set each other on fire.

I haven't been in years and years, but when I did visit, the astounding poverty there saddened me. Unsupervised children roamed the streets, all with shaved heads and wearing tracksuits, all up to no good while their parents drank at the pub. It was very sad to see. I'd hoped things would get better for the people on both sides, but, apparently not.

Why do they shave the children's heads?

[quote] Blame other people, [R2].

[quote]It's always someone else's fault.

How is “Shamrock Boogaloo” blaming someone else, r3?

That seems to be a white trash British isles thing, R8.

No idea, R8, but it was definitely a thing when I lived there in the late 1990s and then again in the 2000s. Almost all the poorer boys had shaved heads. Styles may have changed since.

The area has always been a ticking time bomb ever since the GFA. I was in Belfast a few years ago and you could feel the tension in certain parts. The walls are still up.

There will never be peace until the Catholic separatists are expelled and sent to the Republic of Ireland, which is where they want to live anyway. As long as they remain, they will always foment insurrection and sedition.

Why doesn't England just give Northern Ireland back to the Irish?

Why do they always have to cause trouble? And then they want to always get involved in other country's problems

Does Ireland want them, R13?

R8 They shave the children's heads so it takes less time to pick off the lice. The parents need their valuable time to be at the pub.

[quote]Why doesn't England just give Northern Ireland back to the Irish?

The same reason that the United States doesn't return New Mexico and the rest of the Southwest to Mexico: there are too many of its citizens living there to just hand over part of the country to a foreign power.

[quote] the GFA

GFA = The Good Friday Agreement

Wise men know that the concept of 'agreement' is minimal to the Irish character.

You might meet an Irishman and agree with 98% of what he will say BUT he will fight you to the death over that 2%.

New Mexico isn’t a puny section of a little island that was carved out by another country. It’s geographically and culturally bizarre and illogical for Northern Ireland to be another country.

^ Northern Island isn’t a puny section of a little island.

Ireland is emulating India and Pakistan

Wiki estimates of the number of deaths vary from a quarter of a million to 2million.

Punjab was the worst. Virtually no Muslim survived in East Punjab and virtually no Hindu or Sikh survived in West Punjab.

Northern Ireland had a Protestant majority who wanted to maintain ties to Britain. The rest of Ireland had a Catholic majority who wanted independence, so that's why it was partitioned in 1921, R14. Maybe they could get along if they both ditched Christianity altogether and returned to their pagan roots.

Screw the homo hating Unionists. England should cut them off and let them try to survive on their own. It’s like the poor states in the southern US - living off the teat of the government to support their racist backwards belief system.

R23 Are you suggesting the Unionists are homo-hating?

And are you also suggesting that the Non-Unionists are homo-loving?

[quote] Maybe they could get along if they both ditched Christianity altogether

I get the impression that the younger generation are ditching Christianity.

BUT fighting and hating and resentment and irrationality are still all deeply embedded in the psyche of most Irishmen. It's in their blood.

Who has bigger peepees: the Catholics or the Protestants? That's whose side I'm on.

It's got fucking zero to do with Brexit. This is simply the work of bored nationalist and anti-nationalist troublemaking youth with no comprehension of what it took to bring about the Good Friday Agreement, but are in love with the romance of riot and utopianism.

(And why anyone would advocate to be governed by the profoundly antidemocratic European Union is one of the ironies of history.)

LITERAL VIOLENCE

Oh they blow each other up once a decade or so just to remind everyone they're still there. And I'd guess, recurring quarantine, marching season getting cancelled 2 years in a row and the pubs being shut is a bigger cause than Brexit.

I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant 🎶... *molotov thrown*

I know every primitive culture and some sophisticated cultures have odd habits.

But the concept of a "marching season" seems so weird to me. 'We will join together to express our hate'.

"Loyal Oranges" also seems weird to me.

[quote]And I'd guess, recurring quarantine, marching season getting cancelled 2 years in a row and the pubs being shut is a bigger cause than Brexit.

Wisdom!

R9, The comment at R3 was meant for R1.

[quote]Ireland will be one nation. Scotland will secede. England will be drop to a true 5th rate nation.

What are we? Chopped liver?

[quote] What are we

Here forever.

R34 Wales must be modest about its own dietary culture if it uses another's when making idioms.

[...]

[quote]People take for granted that Irish reunification will happen but they forget that the Republic also gets a vote. A yes vote means all of this will become their problem. Why would they want that?

True. Why would the people of the Republic of Ireland want to inherit the Catholic terrorists of Northern Ireland?

[...]

R10 no such thing as british isles anymore.

To the other question, i can’t ever figure out why there can’t be a way forward that the north could be independent and have its own identity. The republic doesn’t want them, the rest of the UK don’t want them, and they think that they’re being fought over! It would be funny if it wasn’t so desperate. They waste so much time infighting that they fall further and further behind socially every year. Mess!

r11 How was the Irish dick?

If the Republic were still claiming the North in the 60s and 70s when the Loyalists were genuinely so armed and dangerous an ethnic cleansing campaign was pretty foreseeable. I doubt some kids burning a bus has changed their minds. That said the province is a money sink that has to be constantly bribed to stay peaceful, and the Unionists barring mass emigration are never going to dip below being say 40% of the population for the next century, and will also probably go nuclear if a referendum is ever launched. So I can't say I quite get why they want the place.

"Peace" in Northern Ireland post the Good Friday Agreement meant terrorists weren't killing kids out in English high streets buying mother's day cards.

"Peace" meant the IRA weren't putting bombs under cars of MPs.

The "peace" that has existed in Northern Ireland for the last couple of decades has been an improvement on what it was but it's still a highly sectarian culture where sectarian terrorists swapped bombs with drugs. Punishment beatings are still a major thing.

Brexit is a disaster but don't be fooled in to thinking unionist and nationalist sides have been working towards a better Ireland. Brexit is an excuse for much of this, not a cause.

It's two years since the murder of journalist Lyra McKee in Belfast, killed by the IRA.

R43 I’m not sure what your point is. Peace means a stop to violence - I don’t know why you’re being facetious. In the simplest terms there was relative peace in Northern Ireland after the Good Friday agreement was signed and the ceasefire. Do you understand the terms?

And since you seem a bit one sided in your items you mentioned - don’t forget the murders of civilians carried out by the British paramilitary in Northern Ireland.

Since the beginning of time English people have considered the Irish ungovernable. Nothing has changed. Nothing will change. History shows the Irish have the genes that code for irrationalism and intemperateness. Demography is destiny. They'll be still scrabbling a century on. So today's troubles are not even worth consideration.

[quote]Peace means a stop to violence

And violence in Northern Ireland has never stopped.

[quote]And since you seem a bit one sided in your items you mentioned

I specifically mentioned sectarian groups and Unionists, but feel free to ignore that because it doesn't suit your narrative.

My point is that "peace" in Northern Ireland for many is seen to through the prism of what happens in England.

R46 ah I didn’t get that from ur post - pardonnez moi! Yes the brits are awfully self centered and everything is lensed thru England. I can’t stand them lol

Those perpetrating the violence are a mere fractional minority of opportunistic scum like the Portland crowd. Directionless ratbags who need a 'cause' to give their pointless lives meaning.

R45 since the beginning of time English people have been causing havoc around the globe with their crusades and invasions and genocides etc. you can trace so much of modern violence to British violence.

R13 Which is preciseily why the French people invented secularism after a really big bloody war between Catholics and Protestants. Both live in peace since then.

Reason why the French cannot stand the way muslim immigrants are destroying what they build in blood and tears.

Of course, (R45), of course.

[quote] Which is preciseily why the French people invented secularism after a really big bloody war between Catholics and Protestants

r50 No. the French forcibly expelled the Protestants after revoking the edict of Nantes leading to mass Huguenot emigration and massacres, some of the Huguenots coincidently ended up in Northern Ireland. French secularism is mostly a reaction to the Catholic Churches influence being completely pro royalist during the revolution and the 19th century and has fuck all to do with the wars of religion.

[quote]Which is precisely why the French people invented secularism after a really big bloody war between Catholics and Protestants. Both live in peace since then.

In the French Wars of Religion, there were people who actually cared about religion. In Northern Ireland, the Catholic terrorists are just psycho, so secularism wouldn't do anything to moderate their behavior.

R52 The French also expelled radical Catholics and Jews at the same time. It's crazy that in the minds of the Anglos there is only part of the story told on the Internet. Moreover, the Edict of Nantes is not at all the same period as the bloody war between Catholic and Protestants. Such ignorance is unbelievable. France = 2000 years old. Not 500 years old. A lot happened there.

[quote]This is simply the work of bored nationalist and anti-nationalist troublemaking youth with no comprehension of what it took to bring about the Good Friday Agreement, but are in love with the romance of riot and utopianism.

I'm afraid 2019's JOKER has made rioting seem chic and cool.

[quote] Moreover, the Edict of Nantes is not at all the same period as the bloody war between Catholic and Protestants

r54 The Edict of Nantes which ended the French wars of religion. Is not from the same period as "bloody war between Catholic and Protestants"? Are we talking about different wars here? Also what does the last 2000 years of French history have to do with a discussion about that happened after the reformation, and someone having the most batshit definition of secularism I've ever seen?

I guess the right wing media need another enemy to distract the population while the politicians, bankers and businesses leaders corrupt the system even further. Funny this is happening just as covid is nearing its end as a threat in the UK.

R 56 Lol Edit de Nantes = 1598

French Secularism = 1905

This is why 2000 years of History is important. Because people like you are mixing up everything. Just do some researchs rather than being so sure of yourself.

R57 proving yet again that arrogance and juvenile finger-pointing are not restricted to a single political ideology.

r58 I feel there's some sort of language barrier here. My entire argument was that this sentence "Which is precisely why the French people invented secularism after a really big bloody war between Catholics and Protestants. Both live in peace since then." is one of the most bullshit summaries of why the current French republic is secular and manages to mash about 4 centuries of history into one to create a happy secular ancien regime with Catholics and Protestants doing some sort of hippy drum circle.

What BJ is doing to calm people down?

r61 You rang?

R60 Seriously you must be a troll. French secularism happened in 1905. Which means your Edit de Nantes, Huguenots arguments have NOTHING to do with the France secularism. If you cannot understand that i can't do anything for you. The peace between Cathollic and Protestant after the 1905 law was real. You're an ignorant and a French hater.

End of discussion with "I know better your own history"

R62 LMAO

[quote] and a French hater.

You got me there

I worked in NI for nearly four years, 2003-2007, mostly in Belfast, but occasionally in Derry. Born in England, but half-Irish and having lived in Ireland for a few years, I have just enough "twang" that I can pass off in most areas of NI. I enjoyed my time there and made friends (carefully separated!) in both communities, but the underlying poverty is awful. Some observations:

While religion was certainly a predominant factor in the distant past, for the last three or four decades at least, it has been increasingly seen as a convenient label for cultural identity. Most of the people I knew would rarely enter a church, wouldn't know much about Catholic or Protestant religious doctrines, and certainly wouldn't be interested in them - but would proudly and vociferously state that they were Catholic or Protestant. There's another thread at the moment about "Cultural Catholics". I saw plenty of that in NI, and an equal, if not a larger body of people who were de facto cultural Protestants. It's fine to be an atheist in Northern Ireland, but people will want to know if you're a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist. Mainstream religious leaders (those not named Paisley, anyway) at all levels would regularly and publicly denounced sectarian violence, although naturally enough this never made the news in a big way. It also had almost no impact on the sectarians, who didn't see the religious leaders as holding any sort of moral authority and has no interest in the religious message either.

I don't know what it is like today, but back then, even in big cities the two cultures Did. Not. Mix. Ever. Even in a so-called "mixed area", there might be two convenience stores literally next door to each other, selling the same things at the same price: one was for Catholics, the other for Protestants. There would rarely be an obvious difference from the outside, but locals instinctively knew which shop they would visit. I visited a couple of smallish villages just over the border in County Donegal a few times. The difference was stark - despite there being Catholic and Protestant communities in the villages, they gave the impression of being fairly homogenous. There might be two churches, but there was one grocer's, one butcher's, one doctor's surgery, etc. And four pubs.

Northern Ireland is (or was) depressingly poor. Certainly that was caused in large part by decades of military and paramilitary violence, but it seemed to run much deeper than that. The sort of decrepitude which comes from multiple decades of zero spending on infrastructure. This is weird because the UK investment into NI, is significantly higher per capita than the rest of the UK. The UK would be financially better off if it didn't include NI, and as far as I understand it, the Republic looks at the prospect of a United Ireland with barely-restrained horror.

I enjoyed the time I spent in Northern Ireland, but by the end I was mentally and emotionally exhausted by the strain of being an outsider trying to live in two alien cultures at the same time.

Ok. Someone can explain what the brexit has to do with what is happenijg in Ireland?

I’m a Remainer, and now a Scottish Nationalist, but the current troubles in Northern Ireland have as much to do with Covid restrictions as with Brexit.

The Unionist community was already feeling angry because the UK-EU agreements have basically ensured cross-border trade/travel with the Republic of Ireland (which is an important component of the Good Friday Agreement), but have placed barriers between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

On top of this, it was announced that no Irish Nationalist (including Ministers in the Northern Ireland administration) who attended the funeral of one of their campaigners ( which attracted thousands of mourners) would be charged, despite a clear breach of Covid regulations. It makes it seem as if the police force is afraid to police the Nationalist community and has outraged the Unionist side.

R68 Thank you for the explanation

OK, prince Philip is dead

[quote]I’m a Remainer, and now a Scottish Nationalist

Well, they beat believing in unicorns, but they're both hollow ideals.

R6/R22 Paganism would solve so many of world’s problems. But Abrahamic cultists still cling on and cause constant destruction.

R30😂😂😂crying

That's pretty much it, R68. I hope the Covid situation eases before marching season, because most of Europe has been on almost continuous lockdown for a year and frustrations are boiling up.

[quote]I don't know what it is like today, but back then, even in big cities the two cultures Did. Not. Mix. Ever. Even in a so-called "mixed area", there might be two convenience stores literally next door to each other, selling the same things at the same price: one was for Catholics, the other for Protestants.

I have a friend who is married to a man from Belfast who now lives in mainland UK. Her mother-in-law took badly to her son marrying a non religious Welsh woman, but it helped prepare her for the day her other son announced he was divorcing his Protestant wife to marry his pregnant Catholic girlfriend.

"It could be worse, she could be a pregnant Catholic lesbian, or a Jew", my friend told her.

As R68 mentioned....

As I told that rather common Mayor of Chicago after Uncle Dickie was exploded to bits, the Irish are pigs.

The Presbyterians and Episcopalians are throwing rocks at each other!

Northern and Scotland both voted remain.

As someone from Northern Ireland I must say this doesn't represent 99% of the population, who are very decent on the whole.

R80, I hope one day to visit your wee country “where the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea.”

I'm so glad my great-grandparents got on that fucking boat for America. What a shithole country.

They left in the 1920s. My great-grandmother lived to the early 1990s and never went back to Belfast even once to visit. She was fucking DONE with the whole mess.

[quote]since the beginning of time English people have been causing havoc around the globe with their crusades and invasions and genocides etc. you can trace so much of modern violence to British violence.

Well if it weren't for the English many people would be living under totalitarian governments or still living in mud huts and throwing spears at each other. So there's that.

Yes, the Irish are mostly peasants or on welfare

R27, Are you forgetting about the shit Sein Fein pulled with the Bobby Storey the IRA gangster funeral? No consequences for it. That is part of why they are angry. Not all, but some.

[quote] The same reason that the United States doesn't return New Mexico and the rest of the Southwest to Mexico:

Ah yes that restive island nation populated entirely by Mexicans that the United States holds part of in occupation, supporting one faction of Mexicans over another. What a spot-on analogy.

r86, the point is not about "Mexicans" or "Irish". It's what you edited out: "there are too many of its citizens living there to just hand over part of the country to a foreign power."

Citizenship has nothing to do with it, r87 — using that logic you can just declare citizenship to all conquered people and your logic renders every conquest irreversible.

Your analogy is absurd. There is about zero percent similarity to the situation in New Mexico, for fucks sake. You don’t have people of one religion with their boot on the neck of people of another religion, and you don’t have the minority religion fighting (or having recently long fought) an active guerrilla war against the majority.

And it’s not as if New Mexico were all Mexican — New Mexico is only about half Latino and far from all of them are Mexican.

There are basically bo similarities between the two territories but it is interesting that you’re seeking to pretend that NI is just like New Mexico.

The American southwest cannot be returned to Mexico because of the number of Americans who populate the land. Similarly, Northern Ireland cannot be handed over to a foreign power due to the number of UK citizens residing there.

I echo the above - the level of “never mixing” in NI is bizarre and creepy and depressing. Not sure how it ever goes away. Even at gay bars in Belfast, it was an issue. People prodding you to try to find out if you’re Irish or Protestant.

Mother is from NI and father from the Republic. It is always such a relief to cross the “border” to the Republic - just a certain dark undercurrent that hangs over everything. Even in the semi-rural areas, there were Protestant shopping areas and Catholic shopping areas. The thug-like demeanor of a lot of the kids is sad and a little scary. I thought Belfast could,have potential post Good Friday - but it’s still a lame, unfun city that I have no desire to stay in even for a night.

Do Irish people like Americans or is it the usual mix of jealousy/tolerance/condescension that can happen in England?

No one is jealous of Americans, R91.

I am an Atheist so never understood the need to have religion as a crutch. But they are all Irish people praying to the same god, with different traditions of prayer I guess. Do the protestants think they will be discriminated against in Catholic Ireland? Ireland can say it is a secular republic and codify in its constitution that everyone will be treated equally. They have so many things in common. White, Christianity, and Irish.

Has had very little to do with religion for decades, R93. Protestant/Catholic, Loyalist/Republican - it's actually all about Us and Them. An entire nation, almost equally divided between two persecution complexes.

What triggered this this time?

[quote]I am an Atheist so never understood the need to have religion as a crutch. But they are all Irish people praying to the same god, with different traditions of prayer I guess. Do the protestants think they will be discriminated against in Catholic Ireland? Ireland can say it is a secular republic and codify in its constitution that everyone will be treated equally. They have so many things in common. White, Christianity, and Irish.

Scotland, Glasgow in particular, also has a major problem with sectarianism.

What makes the whole thing even more surreal is that if you go 20 miles across the border into the Republic, you find villages with a similar Protestant/Catholic mix, with almost none of the persecution complex. Protestants/Catholics/Atheists/Whatevers rub along quite happily together.

[quote] What triggered this this time?

He drinks a whisky drink He drinks a vodka drink He drinks a lager drink He drinks a cider drink

I get knocked down But I get up again You're never gonna keep me down

Pissing the night away Pissing the night away

R1 the Irish also came to the U.K. in droves, literally millions came. Everyone I know has Irish ancestry so your statement is false. They didn’t go to the USA to escape the English, they moved to wherever there were jobs.

It’s a colony. The Loyalists are like White South Africans. R66 offers the best explanation.

Christianity, the religion of peace.

It doesn't really have anything to do with Christianity r101. It's the Irish being the Irish.