British troop levels return to peace time levels…
At long last the British troop numbers here will drop to the ‘peacetime’ levels they were at before being called onto the streets of Belfast in 1969. Already the battles are beginning over what it means. It clearly means different things to different people:The DUP’s Jeffrey Donaldson:
Referring to the 763 members of the forces who were killed, he said: “This is a difficult time for the families of those who were killed. This was an immense sacrifice and we owe a great debt to those who laid down their life in defence of democracy.” Turning to locally recruited and part-time members of the forces, Mr Donaldson said: “Many UDR and latterly RIR soldiers were killed as they sat alongside their family, worked in their local community or while they returned home from duty. Undoubtedly those soldiers who served amongst their community, especially along the Border, faced scenes and hardships which were never printed and we’ll never read of.”
Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly:
“I remember around 1972, when I was going about, nearly every working class Catholic’s house was on computer,” he said.
“I was on the run at the time and if I gave a name they would ask me what colour the wallpaper was in that household because they had it on file. They used to walk into houses at night and count everyone there, from babies up, to keep check.” He described such operations as “real Big Brother stuff”. “We have had British troops and other crown forces on the ground now into a second generation, and it was an oppressive presence. . .
“Before they had intelligence, internment was being used as a weapon against nationalists and Catholic people. But when you look back at it now it was the simple repetition of tactics that were used by the British army in every single arena in the world they went into as a colonial power.”
If Mairtin reckons it’s bon voyage, to Richard Walsh of the Derry based Rpublican Prisoners Action Group, the ‘withdrawal’ is meaningless:
“They say it (Operation Banner) is drawing to an end, but there will still be a permanent garrison, and they`re only a helicopter`s flight away.
“They can be brought back at very short notice.”
He added: “The fact is that British policy has effectively succeeded in that the RUC/PSNI are able to police without the support of the British Army.
“It`s by no means a step forward when you have the Provisionals openly collaborating with the British Crown Forces.”
Aye Cruimh, back in 1970 they were disarmed but rearmed in 1971 due to the escalating troubles. But there is a big difference in those times and today. In due time I mean, have the gun holster removed from those on the community policing beat. The sight of fully armed police can be a bit of a shock when not used to it, as when you arrive across the water and behold Bobby with an armalite on Osama terrorist alert.
Malcolm, simple day to day community policing is what I’m talking about.
Of course there should armed backup units as what you get with all modern police forces.
”Census 2001 says:
895,000 of a Protestant Background
737,000 of a Catholic Background.”
Thanks for the figures Dewi!
“Aye Cruimh, back in 1970 they were disarmed but rearmed in 1971 due to the escalating troubles.”
They were re armed because they were being murdered Gréagóir.
CAIN :
11 November 1971 Dermot Hurley (50) Catholic
Status: Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Shot while in shop at rear of Oldpark Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) base, Oldpark Road, Belfast.
11 November 1971 Walter Moore (37) Protestant
Status: Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Shot while in shop at rear of Oldpark Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) base, Oldpark Road, Belfast.
Now,according to the IMC it seems likely the provos still have guns and the loyalists and dissidents definitely have them – not to mention commercial criminals.
In all the thirty years of the Troubles you can count on the fingers of one hand instances were routine street patrolling coppers drew their weapons and stopped a serious criminal incident, much less saved a life, yet in that time three hundred police officers, on and off duty, armed and unarmed were killed.
There really is absolutely no need for ordinary street patrolling peelers to be carrying firearms.
Harry – how would you fancy being a sitting duck?
One of my friends still has lead in him after an ambush that happened in a routine patrol – he’s only alive because he had a weapon to hold the attackers off until help arrived.
….And as with the shooting recently of the PSNI officer in Carrickfergus, dissidents and criminals who have guns will use them. But I did’t mean to propose an immediate and total disarming. Maybe further on down the road, in time I meant, as NI develops a sense of normality and trust.
Part of the problem is now that there is a substantial history of killing (armed) cops on the street. The knowledge that police would be on patrol, unarmed, would probably be TOO much for some dissidents to resist…theres no point in making some 19 y/o a sacrifice for a principle.
I wouldn’t necessarily go as far as they went in the 26 county state ( death penalty) but I’d like to see legislation introduced that seriously punishes those caught with illegally held firearms – say a minimum of 20 years jail time, no exceptions, no parole.
‘There really is absolutely no need for ordinary street patrolling peelers to be carrying firearms.’
Yes, my baton, cuffs and Captor spray are more than enough defence against a hood with a sub-contracted AKM.
Take the guns our of paramilitary sanctioned criminal freelancing in both communities and you may have a point.
Harry Flashman @ 11:20 AM:
Nice idea, except:
1. The history and tradition of the RIC/RUC.
2. The expectation by serving officers that they should continue as an armed force.
There really is absolutely no need for ordinary street patrolling peelers to be carrying firearms.
This sounds uncannily like (and, perhaps, as misguided as) the report of 1902, quoted by Daniel Mulhall [New Day Dawning: A Portrait of Ireland in 1900]: “while political agitation kept the Irish police on their toes, there is practically no criminal class in Ireland.”
Am I the only one disturbed by P.O.N.G online gaming centre on the Lisburn Road? i’ve looked in a couple of times and I’m convinced there are dark and depraved acts being carried out in there.
Regarding unarmed police look at the south of Ireland for example which emerged from the ‘War of Independance’, ‘The Civil War’ and the threat as what the Free State saw of the IRA to overthrow the government and state. Yet civil and unarmed policing was established and maintained. It is quite remarkable to think that things simmered down in an what was once an ‘unruleable’ Ireland. Different times today with drugs etc….but simple community policing in NI in time may follow the same course.
“Yet civil and unarmed policing was established and maintained.”
by executing those carrying guns
Gréagóir O’ FranclÃn @ 11:57 AM:
Ah, An Garda SÃochána of the good oul’ Free State! Over 50% ex-farmers or agricultural workers! Over 98% Roman Catholic! And didn’t that nice Commissioner Eoin O’Duffy have a fine taste in shirts!
Didn’t stop that poor bloke being shot dead, when things had “simmered down” in the Wicklow bank raid of January 1924.
Hanging was the done thing in those times for capital offenders Cruimh as it was in the UK!
Do you think the Free State was wrong then to try to maintain it’s control?
Malcolm, I sense your sarcasm and little making!
I’ll leave it at that then, don’t wanna go down the same road as all these threads do!
Mere possession of a weapon was not a capital offence in the UK Gréagóir.
Erskine Childers ?
Don’t get me wrong – it worked – and as I oppose the death penalty I’d go for an automatic 20 years without remission for anybody caught with an illegal firearm – be hey UDA, UVF, Provo or dissident.
p.s. It was deah by firing squad.
Gréagóir O’ FranclÃn @ 12:12 PM:
Don’t give up so easily! I was hoping you’d go on to justify internment. 700 (was it?) on the Argenta and 13,000 in the South by February 1923.
It is also factually correct to point out that Cosgrave’s administration executed more Irishmen than under Asquith and Lloyd George between 1916 and 1921.
Just “sarcasm and little making”, of course. And, no, it’s not relevant to this thread; but (as Billy Joel in the background is making clear) “we didn’t start the fire.”
”It is also factually correct to point out that Cosgrave’s administration executed more Irishmen than under Asquith and Lloyd George between 1916 and 1921.”
Of these, can ye tell me who was hung and who was shot?
Childers was shot – but do you take my point about how hings were acheived in the Free State ?
Gréagóir O’ FranclÃn @ 12:26 PM:
Not my cup of java, but I suggest you refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executions_during_the_Irish_Civil_War
This states the Free State formally sanctioned the execution of between 77 and 81 anti-treaty fighters under the Public Safety Act. Presumably all those were after courts-martial, and by firing squad.
The piece says the figure of 77 was “popularised” (curious choice of word) by Dorothy Macardle, but doesn’t seem to me to explain the odd four. Were these bank robbers, or were they the four (including Liam Mellows) done in as reprisals before the legislation became current?
Then there is the further section on unofficial attrition, including those killings carried out by Joe McGrath’s CID murder gang.
How long, O Lord, how long? Certainly I recall the bitterness was still there in the early 1960s, when I was privileged to hear one TD “call out” another.
On that basis, we have at least a couple more generations to pass before sanity and perspective are fully regained.
“Yes, my baton, cuffs and Captor spray are more than enough defence against a hood with a sub-contracted AKM.
Take the guns our of paramilitary sanctioned criminal freelancing in both communities and you may have a point.”
Nah. You can hang back and call for back up. if you have a weapon, you might feel like a hero and get into a firefight.
Police are not routinely armed in either the Republic or Britain. Why should you be different in “peacetime”.
Yes, I do Cruimh.
But are you trying to equate the maintaining of law and order of the Free State at that time to that of NI, particularly during ‘The Troubles’?
A lecture in early 20th century Irish history by Malcom…..good one!
Ye sheddin’ a tear too for the dear old Irish rebels?
Emotions ran very high in light of the very brutal and bloody civil war, such was the effects of the Treaty and the partition of Ireland! And the fierce animosity raged on for years afterwards, hence the mutual hatred between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. This has been put to bed now.
BTW, if Unionists always maintained that the Free State was forever a haven for the IRA, how does it explain this brutal crackdown and the subsequent crackdowns and internment of IRA men by Free State governments over the years. Conor Cruise O’Brien was a fierce opponent of the IRA, and much hated by Republicans. Hi didn’t have them shot or hung however as times had moved on and it wasn’t the done thing! Interment was the fashion.
Gréagóir – the complaint that I remember was that the ROI of the late 60s onwards allowed the IRA a far freer hand han they were allowed in he past – in part because the IRA were not seen as challenging or being a threat to the state.
“But are you trying to equate the maintaining of law and order of the Free State at that time to that of NI, particularly during ‘The Troubles’? ”
No – I’m pointing out that it was the stick that allowed an unarmed Garda Siochana, not a carrot.
And while I wouldn’t want the death peanalty, I’d like to see LONG jail sentances for anybody caught with illegal firearms – hoods, thugs and terrorists.
Incidentally – talking about the days of the executions in the free state – the Bishops got themselves in a dreadful mess in one of their pastorals
”the complaint that I remember was that the ROI of the late 60s onwards allowed the IRA a far freer hand han they were allowed in he past – in part because the IRA were not seen as challenging or being a threat to the state.”
True, and as ye know people down south were sympathetic toward the plight of Irish Nationalists in NI when The Troubles kicked off, ie media coverage of RUC baton charges, the burning out of Catholic homes etc…
However when the bombing campaigns began the Fine Gael government adopted a more stringent attitude then Fianna Fáil toward the IRA. A comparison of attitudes to The Troubles of two TD’s at the time Neil Blaney (FF) and Conor Cruise O’Brien (FG) is considerable; civil war politics was still alive!
Gréagóir O’ FranclÃn @ 02:05 PM:
Ye sheddin’ a tear too for the dear old Irish rebels?
Unapologetic as ever, indeed I am. “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”
I even find time to wonder whom to blame. I used to heap coals of fire on that Divine Fool, Pearse, for the “blood sacrifice” nonsense, except he and the others caught it from Freud and the Zeitgeist. And then I go away and reconsider Willie Yeats getting it so right in those magnificent final two stanzas: “what if excess of love/ Bewildered them till they died?”
The problem is that, again with WBY, once Cuchulain had been summoned, “What intellect,/ What calculation, number, measurement, replied?”
Hence I am hoping that, finally, the old ghost has been exorcised; and our combined intellects can coolly calculate, number and measure where we are and where we’re heading. Not that the average Slugger thread is greatly reassuring therein.
Sorry about the tear-stains on that one.
Harry F: “There really is absolutely no need for ordinary street patrolling peelers to be carrying firearms. ”
Better to have and not need than need and not have, Harry.