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| Britain |
| Checkpoints return to Ulster amid bomb fears |
| 2008-02-07 |
| Threats from dissident republicans have forced police in Northern Ireland to deploy vehicle checkpoints to prevent a new terrorist bombing campaign and put an end to hopes of a historic British royal visit to the Irish Republic this year. Sir Hugh Orde, the Police Service of Northern Ireland's chief constable, warned yesterday that groups such as the Real IRA would target England if they could. His warning came within hours of a PSNI statement confirming that its officers had set up a number of vehicle checkpoints on routes from the republic into Northern Ireland. Vehicles were stopped and searched yesterday along a number of main routes, including the main Dublin to Belfast road at Loughbrickland. Speaking at Stormont yesterday, Orde said groups such as the Real IRA intended to cause "much damage" to the peace process. Although the chief constable said that at present he believed the Real IRA and other dissident factions did not have the capability to strike in England, they intended to do so. "They want to destroy what has been achieved in Northern Ireland," he said. The Real IRA, which was blamed for the 1998 Omagh bomb massacre, has been re-organising over the last 12 months. Late last year it shot and wounded two PSNI officers in Dungannon and Derry. The re-emergence is also causing concern in the republic, where Irish security officials say they have advised Bertie Ahern's government that a visit by the Queen this year could provide a rallying point for violent dissident republican protests. |
| Posted by:lotp |
| #3 The first "Troubles" began nearly 200 years later: Part of it was the religious strife that enveloped Europe the the last great clash of Catholic vs Protestant known as the Thirty Years War. The religious part kicked in with vigor during the English Civil War which correlated with the Thirty Years War. It's been off and on since. Cromwell's hostility to the Irish was religious as well as political. He was passionately opposed to the Roman Catholic Church, which he saw as denying the primacy of the Bible in favour of papal and clerical authority, and which he blamed for tyranny and persecution of Protestants in Europe.[28] Cromwell's association of Catholicism with persecution was deepened with the Irish Rebellion of 1641. This rebellion was marked by massacres by native Irish Catholics of English and Scottish Protestant settlers in Ireland. These factors contributed to Cromwell's harshness in his military campaign in Ireland.[29] Parliament had planned to re-conquer Ireland since 1641 and had already sent an invasion force there in 1647. Cromwell's invasion of 1649 was much larger and, with the civil war in England over, could be regularly reinforced and re-supplied. His nine month military campaign was brief and effective, though it did not end the war in Ireland. Before his invasion, Parliamentarian forces held only outposts in Dublin and Derry. When he departed Ireland, they occupied most of the eastern and northern parts of the country. After his landing at Dublin on 15 August 1649 (itself only recently secured for the Parliament at the battle of Rathmines), Cromwell took the fortified port towns of Drogheda and Wexford to secure logistical supply from England. At the siege of Drogheda in September 1649, Cromwell's troops massacred nearly 3,500 people after the town's capture—comprising around 2,700 Royalist soldiers and all the men in the town carrying arms, including some civilians, prisoners, and Roman Catholic priests.[30] At the Siege of Wexford in October, another massacre took place under confused circumstances. While Cromwell himself was trying to negotiate surrender terms, some of his soldiers broke into the town, killed 2,000 Irish troops and up to 1,500 civilians, and burned much of the town.[31] Actually, this has been going on since recorded time during the Roman occupation of Britain with Irish raiders hitting the Welsh coast. The Elisabethian's tried to curtail the hobby by establishing colonies in Ireland to keep the various Irish tribes at bay. Can we say Quagmire? When the Irish finally got their independence in the early 20th Century the 'religious' issue didn't disappear. The young republic faced the question about adoption - could Protestants adopt Catholic orphans. The government deferred to the sitting Catholic Church official in Dublin who said no. That and a couple other similar issues resolved in the same perceived manner, ended the debate and sealed solid the lines between north and south. I guess when the decrees become more burdensome from Brussels, maybe they'll wake up and discovered, it no longer makes anymore difference. They'll all thralls to someone else. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-02-07 10:31 |
| #2 ..how long have The Troubles been going on? Depends on who you ask. In 1603 a victory over the Irish in Ulster allowed Britain complete control of Ireland. The first "Troubles" began nearly 200 years later: The Irish Rebellion of 1798, or 1798 rebellion as it is known locally, was an uprising in 1798, lasting several months, against the British dominated Kingdom of Ireland. The United Irishmen, a republican revolutionary group influenced by the ideas of the American and French Revolutions, were the main organising force behind the rebellion. Now that's a Quagmire! |
| Posted by: Steve 2008-02-07 07:38 |
| #1 At the risk of seeming unsympathetic, in light of the recent Brit advice on dealing with insurgencies, I have to ask how long have The Troubles been going on? |
| Posted by: SteveS 2008-02-07 00:45 |