if the unionist community is anti nazi, as claimed by RDE, then why do unionist paramilitaries consort with neo-nazi types like Combat 18 etc?

RDE should be aware of this given her extensive study of the Orange Order. I watched a Channel 4 documentary about Drumcree a few years ago in which an Orangeman, ostensibly going to celebrate Somme Sunday, was sporting nazi swastika tattoos etc. It was a white power thing, he explained to the film crew.

This 'white power thing' still infects the north with people of colour and of different religious background being more likely to suffer prejudice and intimidation in unionist areas such as the Village than in nationalist areas.

I remember a feature article in Comhar a few years ago which looked at this question, which found (as I recall) there was no significant consonance between white sumpremicists in Britain and loyalists.

Apart from that, extrapolating the words of one Orangeman to represent 'the Unionist community' is one hell of a huge step.

Just heard a news report on Downtown Radio: Fr. Reid is being investigated by the police for 'incitement to hatred'. The complaint was made by, surprise, surprise, Willie Frazer [Play the ball Declan - edited Moderator]

A very fair and indeed compassionate article from RDE, not the sort of article her detractors on this site would have her writing.

Before engaging in more wittering whataboutery, I suggest everyone read Liam Clarke's article referred to elsewhere.

They'll find we're all in the greenhouse and we're all throwing stones - a pretty unsafe place, all in all.

Mick

Is there a case for a revision of Godwin's Law - he who blames 'themmuns' automatically loses the argument? :)

Olibhear

if the unionist community is anti nazi, as claimed by RDE, then why do unionist paramilitaries consort with neo-nazi types like Combat 18 etc?

In attempting to equate the unionist community with "unionist paramilitaries", you are ironically engaging in the worst kind of Nazi-like reasoning. Shame on you.

It could be said Fr reid was foolish, trapped or both. The mistake Fr Reid made was to use the term NAZI. there is a closer, more recent and accurate comparator, 'Apartheid'.

If fr reid had used this term, I believe many more people would simply have nodded their heads and said yes, that's correct.

I didn't read the article as I didn't want to REGISTER

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Anyway after not reading the article linked to in this postwith reference to A Reid. I wonder did he think about the Jewish community in Northern Ireland when he put his foot in it with the Nazi remark?

I think that we’ve all had fun with Fr Simon Weisenthal’s ill-advised comments for some days now but even Willie Frazer’s faux outrage has to come to an end. There is no way that the unfair and discriminating behaviour of Unionists 1922-72 can be compared to the totality of the Nazi horrors before and during the Second World War. But that is hardly the point. In every day language to describe someone as a Nazi is to suggest that they behave in a rigid and totalitarian manner and are not open to alternative points of view. Some may feel this to be an appropriate description of Unionism as typified by Willie – I couldn’t possibly comment.

I have frequently described traffic wardens as Nazis but that doesn’t mean that I believe that they operate their own secret death camps. Over the past few days Fr Reid has displayed a distinct naivety in the workings of the world but let’s not forget his role in getting the IRA to the point of decommissioning in the first place. His role as a witness was, in reality, closure for him rather than as a persuader of sceptical unionists, who were a trifle unlikely to believe him in any case.

His comments have been a gift to recalcitrant unionists but will have no lasting effect on the wider world stage when it comes to judging the validity of IRA decommissioning.

Sorry no-hope-here, but even an Apartheid reference would have been totally ludicrous and outrageous. Nationalists had it bad, but not in that league.

Mind, the principle behind any sort of ethnic nationalism (be it Ulster Prod, Irish, Afrikaner, African or whatever) is that your 'nation' is more legitimate than another. Hence areas are marked out as belonging to one 'nation', people promote one 'nation' if needs be at the expense of another, and people demonize rival 'nations'.

So basically June 74 isn't far off, but the point is applicable to most in NI, not just one 'side' or the other.

els

A very fair and indeed compassionate article from RDE, not the sort of article her detractors on this site would have her writing.

As one of her detractors on thehis site I'm happy to agree with you about her comments on Fr Ried.

'Yet we should not forget Reid's 1988 shining act of humanity. And maybe his insult to Jews and to unionists (whose community - unlike the IRA - was anti-Nazi) will act as a catalyst in forcing into honest dialogue those two tribes in Northern Ireland who detest each other.'

Agreed. No further comment required methinks.

“Yet we should not forget Reid's 1988 shining act of humanity. And maybe his “insult” …..will act as a catalyst in forcing into honest dialogue those two tribes in Northern Ireland who detest each other.”
No stu, I think that further comment is vital if we are to have that honest dialogue. Unionists 1922-72 were not Nazis, but their treatment of the catholic (not nationalist, that’s a whole other debate) people was deplorable on a world-class scale. I had hoped that Mary’s McAleeses’ comments earlier in the year would have provoked that debate but unfortunately the message got lost in the “hurt” that was felt by the “Protestant population” – of which just a few might well have taught their children to be wary of Catholics.
I’m beginning to think that the current debate may also be lost to the “hurt” but I’m hopeful that that will no the case.

June 64: I’m beginning to think that the current debate may also be lost to the “hurt” but I’m hopeful that that will no the case.

Umm - third time lucky, perhaps? Or maybe it might be more constructive to choose a different opening gambit next time?

Reader 64,

Touchė,

How about the proposition “This house believes that the Unionist Government of Northern Ireland from 1922-1972, behaved in a discriminatory fashion toward the Catholic section of its population to the point where it almost entirely disenfranchised that portion of the population and practiced very effective discrimination policies across all sectors of public service.”

June 74

Helpful hint: never stand for election. You'll never get elected with sensible moderation like that!

I agree with an amendment, namely the whole text of Whyte 1983.

OC, do you ever wonder that the reason so many Catholics and 'people of colour' (oh God must we lamely accept every linguistic barbarity produced by the thought police of US universities?) suffer attacks in loyalists areas rather than nationalist areas is because hardly any protestants or PoC's live in Catholic areas.

For sheer religious and racial homogeneity you would be hard pressed to find better than Catholic/nationalist housing estates. Worth bearing in mind when we're chucking around the 'racist' accusation.

And N-H-H, no the apartheid comparison won't wash either and before someone else chips in neither will Alabama or Missippi either. There was no legislation on the Northern Ireland statute books that discriminated against Catholics, none, the basis of voting was the same for everyone, universal adult suffrage for Stormont and Westminster and ratepayer franchise for local elections, exactly the same system that had operated in Great Britain a decade or so before.

The B Specials with the exception of the foundation of the state, when the government authorities on both sides of the border were involved in sinister activities and briefly in 1969 were hardly comparable to Einzatgruppen.

Paisley's oft quoted anti-catholic rhetoric is fairly standard stuff for evangelical protestants throughout the world and is as unexceptional as the Vatican's belief that many protestant sects are heretical.

So what have we got? A small insular society, in which localised prejudice expressed itself in local and frankly petty fashion, who got the council house, who got the job driving the school bus etc. These grievances were actually all redressed by 1969 after a couple of years of peaceful protest which was handled roughly and incompetently by the inept local police force, yup that's about it folks worth thirty years of slaughter and mayhem, it sure was.

"if the unionist community is anti nazi, as claimed by RDE, then why do unionist paramilitaries consort with neo-nazi types like Combat 18 etc?"

Good point Oilbhéar Chromaill, but when it comes to supporting the anti-semitism and the REAL NAZIS Combat 18 have a long way to go in catching up with the IRA and the Redemptorist Order,Fr Reid belongs to.

"The only significant pogrom against the Jews in Irish history was instigated by the incendiary preaching of a member of his own Redemptorist Order, Fr John Creagh, in Limerick in the early 1900s. During the second world war, the IRA leadership supported Nazi Germany, sought its help and gave the Germans on the ground reports on the success of Luftwaffe bombing raids on Belfast. The chief of staff, Sean Russell, went to Germany for sabotage training and, far from disowning him, Sinn Fein organised a commemoration and unveiled a statue of him earlier this year."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2765-1827702,00.html

*Umm - third time lucky, perhaps? Or maybe it might be more constructive to choose a different opening gambit next time?*

Precisely, it reminds me of the story from an old school reading book about the sun and the wind competing to get the coat off the back of a man walking along the road. The wind blatters him and succeeds in making him pull the thing tighter around him. The sun gently warms the air and he takes the coat off himself.

If anyone can provide a link to the John Whyte article referenced aboove, I'd be very grateful.

The sun gently warms the air and he takes the coat off himself.>/i>

I knew there was a reason for all this nationalist hot air.

Apart from that, extrapolating the words of one Orangeman to represent 'the Unionist community' is one hell of a huge step.

Mick

Do you really believe that this Orangeman is unrepresentative of a significant section of the unionist community, if not its entirety?

People are quick to denounce republicans for having once sought assistance from Nazi Germany. The names of Sean Russell and Frank Ryan are bandied about as if they were somehow up to their necks in Nazism and all it entailed. The fact is they were no more nazi than the next man but were attempting, unsuccessfully as it turned out, to turn Britain's difficulty to Ireland's opportunity, a long established republican tactic. They were doing so at a time when the world was not aware of the full extent of the Nazi evil.

Today that excuse doesn not exist. So that makes the dalliance of some section of unionism with neo nazis all the more inexcusable.

If Jo wants a link to my father's article, I suppose I may as well supply it:

Here.

Past insensitivity to the Jewish community.

From Alive in Limerick blog

Last year was the 100th anniversary of the Limerick pogrom against the Jews.

Anyone who knows anything about Jewish history in Ireland usually focuses in on this unfortunate episode, although its worth pointing out that there were attacks on Jews in Cork in the 1880s and the Temple Bar area of Dublin is so named because local shopkeepers once barred Jews from the nearby temple from entering their shops.

This doesn’t excuse the Limerick pogrom of course. Even before 1904, there were isolated attacks on Limerick Jews in 1884, 1892 and 1896. They were seen as easy targets,were pretty visible and quite recent arrivals. They mostly arrived in the late 19th Century, primarily from Lithuania, fleeing Russian pogroms that killed hundreds.

The Limerick Jewish community was never big – about 171 by 1901 - though they were concentrated around what is now Wolfe Tone Street. In 1902, the community felt established enough to by land for a graveyard out the Dublin Road (near the Hurler’s Bar).

In January 1904, Father John Creagh made a speech in his Redemptorist church denouncing the local Jews. In the weeks afterwards, Limerick’s Jews were spat at, had stones thrown at them and some were beaten. Some shops refused to sell them food, Jewish traders were boycotted and people stopped paying debts due to them. Kids gave Jewish pupils the silent treatments too. Father John Creagh, who’d previously led campaigns against alcohol and Protestants, repeated his accusations at least twice more. He’s on record as saying

“the Jews are a curse to Limerick, and if I am the means of driving them out, I shall have accomplished one good thing in my life.”

One 15-year-old kid, John Raleigh, was arrested for hitting a Rabbi with a stone. He was given a month in prison but when he returned to Limerick he was given a heroes welcome, carried on people’s shoulders and presented with a silver watch and chain!

After a few months things quietened down but many Jews suffered economically and about eighty moved away from Limerick. Father Creagh moved to the Philippines in 1906, never to return to Ireland.

101 years later Limerick has come to terms with its past. Limerick’s Jewish population is tiny (only 1,790 Jews in the whole of Ireland). The Jewish graveyard has been restored and a University of Limerick Professor was buried there quite recently – the first burial there for some time. The Catholic religious order that John Creagh belonged to, the Redemptorists, apologised for the hurt they caused. Fair enough.

But, incredibly enough, they named an avenue in the City after Father John Creagh and there still is a Creagh Avenue in Limerick City today. Located in Kileely, on the northside, the avenue is definitely named in honour of the Jew-hating Redemptorist priest. It seems truly bizarre.

Well fair_deal, considering all the pogroms against Catholics in NI e.g. Bombay Street, I think you are living in a glass house and throwing stones. In August 1969, 3,500 Catholic families were driven from their homes in Belfast by Loyalist mobs.

What happened to the Jews is to be condemned, although it does not in any way reflect on the Southern state post-independence.

Fair_deal,
the Jewish families left Limerick for .......... Cork.

Here we have an extremely rare phenomenon-a sensible RDE article.

pleasntly surprised by RDE article - didn't believe she had it in her. fair play to her

Brian Boru

"it does not in any way reflect on the Southern state post-independence."

Blueshirts!?! The pro-Franco Irish Christian Front?!?

Only 30 European jews granted asylum before the second world war.
The 1953 government memo that argued for 'non-Aryan' as a classification in its immigration system and as a basis for rejection (as it had been pre-war). It stated "There is strong anti-Jewish feeling in this State which is particularly evident to the Alien Section of the Department of Justice." and that "Sympathy for the Jews has not been particularly excited at the recent news that some thousands are fleeing westwards because of the recent round-up of communist Jews who had been prominent in Government and in government service in eastern European countries"
In the Dail, Oliver J. Flanagan TD praised Hitler for ridding Germany of Jews claiming, "I doubt very much if they are human!" and "There is one thing that Germany did and that was to rout the Jews out of their country. Until we rout the Jews out of this country it does not matter a hair's breadth what orders you make. Where the bees are there is honey, and where the Jews are there is money." The public censure for this - he later became minister for defence.

Fair_deal, at least we didn't confiscate the assets and bank-accounts of German-Jews unlike the UK under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

Regarding the Blueshirts, De Valera banned them and the leader of the Blueshirts - who had been leader of the (Opposition) Fine Gael party only lasted a year before he was deposed for his fascist leanings. Even for the main Opposition part associations with fascism were unacceptable, let alone the government. So the existence of the Blueshirts does not reflect on the policies of the Southern government at any stage.

Regarding Oliver J.Flanagan, in even the most moderate an tolerant of countries, you will always have the odd crank but you should tar everyone with the one brush.

OC

They were doing so at a time when the world was not aware of the full extent of the Nazi evil.

No, but Sinn Féin was fully aware of it when it held a commemoration to Sean Russell earlier this year.

I respect your right to live a greenhouse, but please put the stone down...

OC

"They were doing so at a time when the world was not aware of the full extent of the Nazi evil."

Russell, possibly, may not have done , having died in 1940 on a U-Boat, but Ryan and anyone who lived past 1940 and could read a newspaper could have and should have.

http://www.ushmm.org/lectures/kalb.htm

"In May (1942), two Jewish members of the Polish National Council in Poland -- Szmul Zygielbojm and Ignacy Schwarzbart -- produced even more startling information. They disclosed that the Germans, with Teutonic efficiency, had begun to put Jews into what were called concentration camps there, to be killed in gas chambers, 90 at a time, or burned to death in ovens. Zygielbojm and Schwarzbart concluded that the Nazis had embarked on a program, as they put it, "to annihilate all the Jews in Europe." The two Jewish representatives recommended that the Allies retaliate in some way against German citizens living within their jurisdictions. The recommendation fell on deaf ears, coming as it did, after all, from "prejudiced sources."

News of the Nazi atrocities was published. On June 30, 1942, and again on July 2, The New York Times ran reports, first published by the Daily Telegraph in London, that more than 1,000,000 Jews had already been killed by the Germans. The reports were mind blowing, but The Times again placed them on an inside page."

*in even the most moderate an tolerant of countries, you will always have the odd crank but you should tar everyone with the one brush.*

For goodness sake listen to / read yourself it's as if the only unity we'll ever see in this country is over which brush we'll tar other people with.

That is not the place to start!

"Blueshirts!?! The pro-Franco Irish Christian Front?!?"

The Blueshirts were based on facist groups but were not as a whole a facist group themselves. It was set up to protect opposition party meetings from the IRA. You can check up on them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueshirts

As regards the pro-Franco Irish Christian Front, I think the word Christian is the clue here. It wasn't a love of facism as so much a hate of communism and other anti-Christian movements like anarchists. The Ireland of old was often so short-sighted.

As regards Irelands treatment of the Jews, well there was no official policy of discrimination but the fact that Christians couldn't even get along together on this island, it's a sure bet that they have not been threated fairly down the years. But this goes for every other European country, especially around WW2, so there is no moral high ground here for anyone.

"the policies of the Southern government at any stage."

Its immigration policy on Jewish ('Non-Aryans') pre-WW2 does though. Mr Flanaghan went on to be a government minister hardly a peripheral political figure.

Fair_deal, at least our government didn't steal the money of the Jews like the UK did in the Trading with the Enemy Act when the UK government stubbornly rejected calls for Jews to be excluded from its terms. And the UK was hardly generous in terms of helping Jews escape Nazi terror. And the British government refused to bomb the rail-lines leading to Auschwitz. Why I wonder?

BB

Public opinion in the Free State was overwhelmingly pro-Franco, as was the Catholic church and most of the pressThousands were mobilised in emotional anti- communist rallies organised by Patrick Belton's Irish Christian Front, local councils passed resolutions demanding the Fianna Fáil government break diplomatic relations the Spanish Republic,

when 0'Duffy's men left Ireland to the sound of cheering crowds, having been lauded by the Irish Independent and blessed by the Catholic hierarchy.

the majority of the Irish labour and trade union movement maintaining a nervous neutrality or in many cases openly supporting Franco's insurgents...unions which did take a pro-Republican stand lost members as a result.

widespread grassroots Fianna Fáil support for the insurgents, and a divided cabinet (Sean Lemass was pro-Republic, Sean MacEntee pro-Franco) the Irish government maintained,

From History ireland

OC

"They were doing so at a time when the world was not aware of the full extent of the Nazi evil."

Mein Kampf was published in the 1920's. Plenty of warning signs in it.
The first Concentration camps were established in the 1930's.
The Nuremberg laws were passed in 1935.
Kristallnacht was in 1938 after which 30,000 jews were put into the concentration camps.
The actions towards Austria and Czechoslovakia in the 1930's and its Jewish populations.
The Guernica bombing and support for Franco.

The full story may have not been out but there was plenty to make the republican movement well aware they were making a deal with seriously nasty pieces of work.

BB

Thank you for the whataboutery and denial.

"Public opinion in the Free State was overwhelmingly pro-Franco, as was the Catholic church and most of the pressThousands were mobilised in emotional anti- communist rallies organised by Patrick Belton's Irish Christian Front, local councils passed resolutions demanding the Fianna Fáil government break diplomatic relations the Spanish Republic,"

The Republican side were no angels. Remember that they put Catholic priests and bishops to death.

The Spanish Republicans that is.

Fair Deal

"…the Temple Bar area of Dublin is so named because local shopkeepers once barred Jews from the nearby temple from entering their shops."

This statement is so wildly inaccurate, it's touching. I don't doubt for a second you believe it's true - no doubt some trustworthy source told you all about it.

The name `Temple Bar' was first coined a thousand years ago when it was bought by returning crusaders of the Order of the Knights Templar. The Knights Templar returned from their crusades laden with riches and bought up chunks of many of the large cities across Europe at the time. The Temple area in London was another outpost of their empire. I'm not sure if the name `Temple Bar' has had an unbroken association with that area since then, but it was called Temple Bar then (or Timpeall Barra, I think) and it's called the equivalent now. (Hence the archaic `Bar' bit - I mean, what the hell does that even mean in modern English?)

(Your explanation was really very touching. You really will believe any old wives tale, won't you? As long as it testifies to the iniquity of Irish Catholics, natch.)

Fair_deal,
I think you are being a little unfair so I'm going to weigh in too.

For a start only 750 went to fight, not thousands. You also failed to quote this from your source:

"Many of O'Duffy's men were not former Blueshirts, a few were even republican opponents of the General. Most seem to have been influenced by a desire to defend the Catholic faith, and were deeply moved by the press reports of Republican atrocities committed against clergy.

"All were fervently anti-communist, which despite the weakness of communism in Ireland was a feeling held by a wide section of the population."

"It is important to stress that the Irish Brigade's volunteers saw themselves as no less noble than their opponents. Most too, could not be described as fascists."

Or this:

"If the average IRA member cared little about Spain then Tom Barry would scarcely have needed to prohibit their joining the International Brigades. When the anti-Franco Basque priest Fr Ramon Laborda spoke in Dublin his audience was overwhelmingly republican. From the government clampdown of 1936, and the loss of its chief-of-staff Moss Twomey, the IRA was in an almost permanent state of crisis, but most of its leading figures in this period would still have been anti-fascist."

You said:
"Its immigration policy on Jewish ('Non-Aryans') pre-WW2 does though. Mr Flanaghan went on to be a government minister hardly a peripheral political figure."

I don't recall the Irish Free State deporting 2,000 fleeing Jews back to Nazi Germany in the 1930s like Great Britain did.

What does that tell you about British attitudes in the 1930s? To Great Britain's credit, they were the only Protestant state not to indulge in the Nazi science of phrenology.

I don't recall the Irish state deporting anybody and, not that it matters, Charles Bewley, the anti-semitic Irish Minister in Berlin, who refused visas to Jews and who was eventually removed in disgrace, was a Protestant and not a Catholic.

Apologies for that bit of whataboutery but to point out the Irish State as some rogue anti-semitic state in 1930s Western Europe, where anti-semitism was rife, when it was the first European country to enshrine the rights of Jews in its constitution is nearly risible.

“Mr Flanagan went on to be a government minister hardly a peripheral political figure.”

This is true but with the qualification that he did not become Defence (a minor Ministry) Minister until 1976/77 while he had spoken his anti-Semitic remarks in the Dáil way back in the 1940s. Flanagan was a complete maverick who had been around various parties. He owed his repeated election to being a good parish pump man and a genial nature and his eventual elevation to the cabinet to personal loyalty to Liam Cosgrave alone. Nobody paid any attention to his single much earlier outburst which was regarded as a product of ignorance rather than malice. The Jewish community never did not make an issue of it.

Cyberscribe

Are you tying to suggest that Fr. Alec Reid did a 'ken Livingstone' - I don't think so. It was out of character yes - but I think he was just exasperated and 'lost the rag' at the lack of 'big picture' by pure intransigents in the audience.

Fair_Deal

Remember this one? Unlike "Temple Bar" it's real. (From the London Times 14/1/03)

"THE construction of Northern Ireland´s first purpose-built mosque is being
blocked by Unionist politicians who say that residents would be kept awake
by "wailing" and that Muslims are plotting to destroy Christianity...

"...after years of minding their own business, they (Muslims) have spoken out after
Unionist councillors objected to their plan for a mosque in a field outside
Portadown. One councillor claimed that the development could pave the way
for an al-Qaeda terrorist cell in the area.

Fred Crowe, an Ulster Unionist councillor and former Mayor for the Craigavon
area, said that residents in Bleary believed that their way of life would be
threatened if the mosque were built...."

That wasn't the 1930's, that was the year 2003.

What about this from DUP councillor Woolsey Smith? (From the Sunday Times 19/1/2003)

" ..Smith said he had researched Muslim beliefs on the internet and recommended a fundamentalist Protestant site, sermonaudio.com, which turned out to be highly critical of Islam. It contained a prediction by Paisley of a final conflict that would be fought out between "Biblical Christianity" and "Mohammedanism-Judaism-Romanism".

Will that "final conflict" have implications for the peace process? Should Muslims, Catholics and Jews in NI be afraid?

If I was born where they were born, was taught what they were taught, I would believe what they believe...shot dead by Booth.

The Sun and the Wind, by Aseop, look in Aseop's fables, he was a Greek slave but had alot to say. If you read the fable you must glean from the story meaning. Listen well to the moral not only to the actions of the story. Though the story was written over two thousand years ago, it still holds meaning.

Listen well to your own story it still holds meaning and find the moral of the story. Someone has to, or the story repeats, over and over again.

Interested readers: read Aesop's fables they are quite astounding, then as now.

Bobby Baun

It's funny but I thought it was republican's who helped the Nazi's during the war???

Was it not the Unionists who fought against them?

Simple reasoning.

Alex Reid misses the irony in his own establishment whom seek to perpetuate Nazi-esq seperation in the form of the school system.

As for the comments no-hope-here on Apartheid; the nationalists/republicans have promoted this at each interface area across the province. Have you ever compared each side at the interface? I think you'll find a wee trend there..

It was David Booth who shot Abraham Lincon, it is the sun that warms us all. It is us who should help each other out no matter what. It is us who cause the problems and it is us who must solve them.
How about this:
Food
Medicine
Housing
Recreation
Education.

There, there, we can all count on one hand can we not. So who cares if we are unionists, loyalists, republicans, or nationalists.

Stop bickering stand together for helpinjg each other out, especially you comrade Stalin, your name implies that even you could except the five point (five year) plan.

PS My Dad was born in Belfast and he took me up the Falls Road and he said look at those houses what do you see, then he took me to the Shankill Road and he said look at those houses and what did you see. He asked me if there was any differnce and I could not see one. I am Canadian, I saw not a difference I told my Dad (this was 1970)-- Exactly , said my Da.

In the 30's who was poor, all of us, let us stand toghether, like we did in the poor marches of the depression.

where am I from,

EARTH

For those who really dislike the need to register just to see an article quoted by a Slugger blogger, the following site is useful:

www.bugmenot.com

You type in the URL of the site that has requested you register (www.unison.ie in this case) and it will tell you if there is a "shared" login that someone else in the bugmenot community has already registered.

This is a great service for NY Times etc.

PS, Bobby....how's the leg? The Leafers had a good week, eh?

Blah blah... what about this?... blah blah... No, themmuns are really Nazis... blah blah... one Unionist did this (therefore clearly all Unionists think it)... blah blah... one Republican did this (therefore clearly all Republicans are like that)... blah blah...

Have you lot learned nothing?

Bigotry is based on ignorance and it is a common poison - and it's best to get over your own before you accuse others.

It's funny but I thought it was republican's who helped the Nazi's during the war???


A fringe extremist minority were trapped in the mad logic of 'my enemy's enemy is my friend'.It is worth bearing in mind that more from the south than from the north enlisted with the allied forces.

Alex Reid misses the irony in his own establishment whom seek to perpetuate Nazi-esq seperation in the form of the school system.,

Separation per se,as per single faith denominational schools is not 'Naziesque'.
.The Orange Order constitution by contrast has racist undertones.

"The only significant pogrom against the Jews in Irish history was instigated by the incendiary preaching of a member of his own Redemptorist Order, Fr John Creagh, in Limerick in the early 1900s.

Joe Briscoe, son of Robert Briscoe, the Dublin Jewish politician, describes the Limerick episode as “an aberration in an otherwise almost perfect history of Ireland and its treatment of the Jews”
During the 1980's 3 Jewish T.Ds. were elected to the Dail which would amount to an overrepresentation of some 6,000 per cent.

George

"I don't recall the Irish Free State deporting 2,000 fleeing Jews"

Thank you for the whataboutery. You can only deport people if you let them in in the first place, the RoI let in 30 Jews seeking asylum before the war. The UK should have done much more than it did but it did let in thousands and in the years immediately before the war gave government grants to Jewish groups for the support of the refugees. Also the fact the UK and the other Allies turned up for the fight against nazism does give us some absolution for our pre-war failures.

The relevant part of the constitution?

The anti-communist line was used by white south africans to justify apartheid so I am wary of that as a justification/excuse. Also as the research happened decades after WW2 when the full scope of Fascist and Nazi atrocitities were know the members of the brigade had plenty of scope for trying to put a different spin on their actions.

Biffo

How does the narrow minded racist views of a councillor enable nationalist denial about anti-jewish attacks and collaboration with fascism and Nazism?

"Will that "final conflict" have implications for the peace process? Should Muslims, Catholics and Jews in NI be afraid? "

It will have no direct consequences for the peace process. No they shouldn't be afraid.

IJP

"Blah blah... one Republican did this (therefore clearly all Republicans are like that)... blah blah...

You complete and utter hypocrite! You politicians are all a waste of space.

Biffo

You know what they say, mate... no politics, just action!

"remember the man's moral courage"

Is that the same "moral courage" that caused him to declare, in response to a question on "Hearts and Minds", that the IRA were indeed "whiter than whiter" and that they were not involved in the Northern Bank robbery?
He had the audacity to say this when the bloody dogs in the street know the Provo Rafia carried out the robbery!

Is that the same "moral courage" that aided him when he ranted,

"the unionist community treated Catholics in Northern Ireland almost like animals"?

Then when Willie Frazer, who lost 5 members of his family at the hands of republicans, stood up and went to leave, Sectarian Alex Reid and his bountiful "moral courage" enabled him to say,

"You see. You won't listen to the truth. You come from a community that should be absolutely ashamed of itself."

When Willie Frazer rightly challenged him about the IRA butchering of Protestants and the fact that at republican funerals Reid had referred to IRA men as "heroes", Bigot Alex Reid outdone himself, just when I thought he couldn't get any more narrow-minded and prejudiced, by stating that he believed that the unionist community were,

"no better than the Nazis".

You need to have an extremely bitter and twisted mindset to utter slurs against the whole unionist community like those above, and you need to be either naive or more sinister, an IRA sympathiser, to describe the aforementioned gang of murderers, racketeers and drug-pushers as "whiter than white".

In short, "moral courage" and Alex Reid are a contradiction. They don't belong, and shouldn't be spoken in the same breath...

Oliver Cromwell,
Loyalist organisations have no formal links with any neo-nazi organisations that I view as scum and the dregs of society.
Any association or link is on a purely individual basis, and is the EXCEPTION rather than the rule. The poster that circulated loyalist ares at the beginning of the summer supports this. On it is the question,

"Loyalist OR racist-you choose".

You can be one or the other, but not both...

Bangor Boy
Ha! the leg's broken but I still scored. How about the Giants, I heard Theo Fleury is doing well. Here in Toronto we all support the Leafers, orange and green, white and black, yellow and red. Hopefully the giants are a team everyone can support regardless of creed. It's a rough game, take the man not the puck. On to Lord Stanley's mug. Apologies to those who don't know what we are on about.
Bobby

I found out that some people I knew were at the Fitzroy Meeting. On monday morning I rang them to find out what had occurred.

These people are very liberal Presbyterians who would be involved in inter church groups and generally ecumenical happy clappies who would be very pro power sharing/ pro Agreement.

From the reports and acounts I read over the weekend in the media, and given their well established moderate credentials I expected that they would concurr that Fr Reid had been goaded/ insulted by Willie Frazer, and yer man Albert (who is a well known DUP agitor who always phones talkback and used to heckle & berate Trimble/McGimpsey etc on Lets talk?Spoptlight).

However their first hand accouint was that nothing, repeat nothing had been said prior to Reid's Nazi outburst which would have provoked him to say what he said.

From the off he appeared aggressive, defensive and on a mission to tell people the way it was, as far as he was concerned. (BBC Radio Ulster's Sunday Sequence programme with William Crawley also confirms this)

Frazer's predictable reaction and walkout apparently let him off the hook, because he was hanging himself with every word he spoke. My friends say they were genuinely shocked by his comments and overall display of hatred sectarian hatred. They were at the meeting hoping to be reassured re decommissioning and left completed deflated and disillusioned