Article

2008-02-07 Britain

Checkpoints return to Ulster amid bomb fears

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by lotp 2008-02-07 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#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|| 2008-02-07 00:45|| Front Page Top

#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|| 2008-02-07 07:38|| Front Page Top

#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 captureâcomprising 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|| 2008-02-07 10:31|| Front Page Top

23:59 twobyfour
23:54 twobyfour
23:47 RD
23:25 Mike
23:24 www
22:57 3dc
22:54 GK
22:45 3dc
22:42 trailing wife
22:38 trailing wife
22:34 trailing wife
22:20 DMFD
22:15 DMFD
22:13 JosephMendiola
22:06 JosephMendiola
21:55 Frank G
21:51 JosephMendiola
21:48 Frank G
21:46 Steve White
21:37 ryuge
21:34 Scooter McGruder
21:33 Jan
21:32 KBK
21:24 Sock Puppet of Doom