You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Police Say IRA Tried to Abduct Dissident
2004-02-22
The Irish Republican Army tried to abduct a leading IRA dissident from a Belfast bar, Northern Ireland's police chief said Saturday, reviving arguments over whether the outlawed group will ever renounce violence and disband.
My guess is "no" to both...
Leaders of the moderate Catholic and Protestant parties demanded clear, new peace commitments from the IRA after Chief Constable Hugh Orde revealed Friday night's abduction attempt. Police responding to a telephone call from the pub prevented the gang from escaping by ramming into their van at a nearby intersection. Inside the van, they found four IRA suspects and the would-be abductee, alleged IRA dissident Bobby Tohill. Police were questioning the four men arrested on Saturday, a process that could last for up to a week under British anti-terrorism laws. Witnesses said as many as three other people fled from the vehicle into West Belfast, a Catholic area. Police later arrested two more men on suspicion of involvement. Tohill, 44, was hospitalized with cuts and bruises but later discharged himself. Orde said the four suspects are connected to the mainstream IRA, formally called the "Provisional" IRA or PIRA. The Provisionals have been observing a cease-fire since 1997, but dissident groups called the Real IRA and Continuity IRA are trying to break it.
Posted by:Fred Pruitt

#5  Ed,
You obviously have no clue about what is going on in Northern Ireland. How do you know if thier will be a united Ireland or not? There are nearly 5 million Catholics on the island of Ireland and 1 million Protestants. How could anyone who agrees with the principal of democracy agree with the fact that this 1 million dictates to the rest as regards the constitutional position of Ireland?

As regards your comments about the Catholics reducing the Protestants to second class citizens, they border on the rediculous. There is a protestent minority living hapilly south of the border and they are not down trodden second class citizens. The option is open for them to move to the north where the Protestent people are in the majority, but very few chose to do this because they are treated no better and no worse than Catholics here.
Your little theory about the IRA wanting to force Protestants to convert or face expulsion is the most rediculous annalysis of the situation in the north of Ireland that I think I have ever heard.
The man who is looked to as being the founding father of Irish Republicanism is a man called Theobald Wolfe Tone: a Protestant. Republicans are fighting to remove the British pressence from Ireland, not the protestant people. The want to create a situation in which all people of the island, be they Catholic or Protestant, live together free from foreign domination.

The 'madness' you say you have witnessed first hand does not exist.
Posted by: Rob c   2004-2-23 9:52:45 AM  

#4  I'm afraid NMM had a "black helicopter" episode last night. Be nice to him if you can.
Posted by: Nmms Therapist   2004-2-22 10:00:42 AM  

#3  like it was meant to be there wouldn't be problems like that!

What is it with Left and their rush to demonstrate their ignorance of every subject under the sun. Northern Ireland was created to avoid a civil war between the protestants and catholics. There have been regular elections ever since and always a solid majority to stay part of the UK.
Posted by: phil_b   2004-2-22 5:18:14 AM  

#2  In point of fact, NotMike, Ireland will never be one country. The Protestants in the North fear that they will be reduced to nothing more than a powerless minority in a unified Ireland. Which, given the population numbers, is pretty much the truth.

I don't give a rat's ass for either side, but I am able to do the basic math. The Catholic majority will have the Protestants by the short hairs, politically, ecomonically, and socially. IF (and yes, I admit, it IS "iffy") the Catholics so choose, they could reduce the Protestant population to second class citizens in less than a week, making them not unlike black Americans during the pre-1968 era.

Ideally (and this has been espoused by MANY members of the IRA on an unofficial basis, ie, "It's only my PERSONAL opinion, but..."), the more militant members of the IRA would simply like to charge in and force all Protestants to either convert, or get the hell out of Ireland.

Ethnic cleansing that's no different than the madness in the Balkans.

I don't accuse you of being a troll, NotMike... not on this subject. The insanity of Ireland is a sort you have to be steeped in, a madness I got to see first hand in my mother's family. She was Scots-Irish, born and bred. My grandfather almost KILLED my grandmother when he discovered that she was part-English, relenting ONLY when he learned that she was of a bastard line out of a truly annoying English lord, one that had been "swept out" of England over inheritance issues. (That made her a "victim" of the bloody English, same as him, so that made her okay. *rolls eyes*)

No, the madness of Ireland has to be experienced, not read about.

Ed Becerra
Posted by: Ed Becerra   2004-2-22 3:29:20 AM  

#1  Well maybe if the Brits buggered off and let Ireland become one country like it was meant to be there wouldn't be problems like that! Of course British and Israeli occupations are to be glossed over in the New World Order
Posted by: NotMike Moore   2004-2-22 3:10:09 AM  

00:00