As a protestant I admit I felt a kinship for protestants in Northern Ireland - the Catholic Irish got a lot of sympathy and good press over the recent decade, often through Hollywood, where the battle is often portrayed as "oppressive English - poor Catholics". The problems and fears of protestant Irish never seemed to get a decent look in.
But reading this book one thing becomes clear - they are all nutters.
Actually that's not fair - only some of them are nutters. But enough to have caused unneccessary destruction and misery for 25 years.
And the Catholics are nutters, too.
From this book which is written by a journo with experience of over 20 yrs in that troublesome part of the world it seems it went like this: protestants planted in Northern Ireland fiercely attached themselves to England, had a justifiable fear of Catholics which has never gone away. They had success cutting out their slice of the world in the 1910s under the indomitable Edward Carson - another successful "siege" to follow the siege of Derry. This perhaps unduly encouraged them to "hold out". So when in the 1960s civil rights workers and Catholics justifiably complained about the gerrymander and inherent legal persecutions against Catholics, the Proddies dug their heels in, viciously and even to the point of violence. So in a way the Proddies started it (or at least accelerated it first) - but when the IRA and co got going they really got going and overtook it. Then the Proddies started up their own terrorist groups, the UDA and UVF, who never really got the PR of the IRA probably because they concentrated on Northern Ireland whereas the IRA went off shore and blew up things in England and killed people in Europe.
They were nutters - they were all nutters. Horrible thing was in the 70s the IRA would kill some innocent person, then to get revenge the Proddie nutters would go kill a Catholic - not an IRA person just any Catholic they could get their hands on. Then to geet revenge the IRA would kill any proddie they could get their hands on. They were lazy. That's why it was so horrible, many people just wanted to go along their own way but couldn't because of lazy terrorists. By the late 80s and early 90s the info of the terrorists improved (the IRA claimed British intelligence were leaking stuff to the proddies to help wipe out the IRA and it seems the proddies regained the upper hand in the first bit of the 90s) but innocent people are still being killed. Finally they seem to have calmed down.
How could it have been avoided? Knowing less about history would have helped - Ireland is a terrific example for those who think history shouldn't be taught in schools. You could force mixing. Certainly marches that inflame clashes could have been stopped. People get so hot and bothered. They all needed to take a cold shower.
I always thought the best thing to do would be have a federated Ireland, with all the rights of both parties constitutionally protected. This was floated in the 70s and 80s but was knocked back.
I can't believe they allowed all those terrorist prisoners to be kept up like prisoners of war (on both sides) AND let them out of gaol - what happened to the rule of law? But if that's what it took to get peace done, then, well... It also seems silly to go on about disarmament. The British government seems to have been justified to treat the whole damn place like a pack of children in the 70s.
Because the protestant side often doesn't get much of a guernsey here but is very much the root of the problem this is an endlessly fascinating book. Well researched, it seems to be fair, so accordingly is frustrating and heartbreaking to read. So many people didn't want peace - there wasn't an urgency for violence, it wasn't a matter of survival. So many of the killers convinced themselves they'd be normal if they didn't live there in that time - wasn't anyone teaching them that there were other ways? So pointless. Such a waste.
No comments:
Post a Comment