Catholic terrorism in Northern Ireland

[Cynical Ninja]

That sucks. He was a cute boy. :(

I wish they would just stop, but I don't see that happening. They have been fighting over this for a long time. I remember being very little and hearing the adults in my house discussing the IRA. Who is right and who is wrong? There isn't an easy answer here (NOT condoning the IRA, just wondering if UK should have stayed out of Ireland in the first place...)

OP, you're a Scot, what do you think of this as a Scot? (Not trying to offend you for once, would really like to know.)

I guess a lot of Texans would be pissed if Texas voted to become part of Mexico. There might be enough of the brown votes to do it.

Well my dads family were Northern Irish protestants that moved to Scotland during the potato famine (if you hear some Republican Irish people talk it was only catholic potatoes that had the blight!), so I could be accused of taking sides even though I'm an Atheist.

The shit in Ireland goes back to Oliver Cromwell and William of Orange but to surmise what happened in the last few decades.

Leaders of the catholic community in Northern Ireland REQUESTED that the British army go into Ulster to defend catholics against protestant aggression.

Then bloody sunday happened (British paratroopers shot and killed 13 unarmed civilians during violent demonstrations mainly thanks to poor leadership and inexperience, I'm not defending them they did kill people) and recruitment into the IRA escalated as a result and the "troubles" got worse and the situation becamea quagmire, with Republican groups killing loyallists, soldiers and policemen, and loyallist groups killing catholics.

Then you had the martyrdom of the hunger strikers (convicted republican terrorists starved themselves to death in prison and the British authorities let them do so).

I stand somewhere in the middle, the main instigators are the IRA groups but the loyallist groups aren't much better.