This surely beats the lot, Mick. To say this is selective reporting would be putting it mildly.

What happened in Tyrone- and in parts of Derry- was that bigoted loyalists attacked GAA fans on their way home. Their motivation was pure hatred and petty-mindedness. For RDE to turn this into another example of MOPEry is quite hilarious.

On a more serious note, given that the DUP's Willie Hay has argued it's provocative for nationalists to have GAA stickers on their cars, can we expect a similar sentiment from the DUP re unionists having 'Where your poppy with pride' stickers on their cars in the coming days and weeks?????

Did the GAA fans get the residents permission before this "triumphalism" and "agressive" display? ;)

sorry that should be 'wear your poppy with pride.'

AND Fair_Deal, did Norn Iron fans get permission before their 'triumphalist parades' -you terminology- following the soccer victory over England?

"Did the GAA fans get the residents permission before this "triumphalism" and "agressive" display? ;)"

Well its better than carrying paramilitary flags during a triumphalist and agressive display !!

Fair_deal your comparison is unfair because this is a sporting event, not a celebration of one religious group defeating another hundreds of years ago.

On the text , theres reference to being "...murdered into a united Ireland"

How does that work?

Is it mere pedantry to point out that if one is dead (fopr whatever reason), one is'nt capable of being dreadfully upset about a united Ireland or (much else for that matter)- is one?

It seems that when Ruth Dudley Edwards is blogged on Slugger, there's a free for all on the old play man not ball routine.

It's both tedious and it's bad politics.

RDE's view is selective in precisely the same way as Brian Feeney's view is selective. And it is no less valuable for it.

If you don't agree with her, by all means attack what she says. Provide countervaling stories, or better still verifiable evidence to the contrary. It's good politics. And it's interesting to read.

But kindly leave the bitching whataboutery out of it!

MCT,

Red Card (your second). See you in a fortnight!

Dear Michael,
The following is a precis of a posting I put on another thread - which probably escaped your attention as it was a bit past its sell by date:
Michael,
I have noted with some concern that your interjections tend to have a partisan,pro-unionist bias.This sits uneasily with what should be your definitive role as impartial moderator-in-chief.
This,BTW,is not 'playing the ball'-it is remonstrating with the ref for appearing to give an inordinate amount of free kicks to one side.

A glaring flaw in RDE's general analyses is an ingrained tunnel vision for the unionist side and general aphasia for the other.
The following is the text of an e mail I was about to send in her direction having picked up on this article in Newshound.
Dear Ruth,
I read with interest your recent article Bel Tel article with it's fascinating implied uncritical reportage of punters' opinions on the ground as gospel truth and some juicy instances of hermeneutical use of the said Gospel.
Perhaps,in the interest of balance,you could do a similar article on Catholics in North Antrim?

SO,

Thanks for the question. Sorry I missed it first time around.

The rule is very, very simple. Play the ball and not the man. If someone caught for playing the man rather than the ball is nationalist, what am I to do? Give them a bye until a unionist offends?

As it happens, the very first person to get red carded was unionist. He was 'done' for seriously tackling (only once) another unionist. He didn't complain. In fact he apologised, and is still an (albeit irregular) visitor to the site.

Other unionist 'offenders' have complained and, as in at least one notable case, have gone elsewhere to blog on another site.

Except in extreme circumstances, no one gets penalised on a first offence. It usually comes after a stream of warnings. In MCT's case even after copious private email correspondence with me explaining the rule in great detail.

I like MCT. At times in the past he has provided us with some honest and valuable insights. But I do not have the time to police every one his posts for wilfull man playing.

I cannot apologise for penalising people who consistently play outside the rule of the site - even if every single one of them were to be nationalist. Amd penalising by quota would be unjust and misleading.

As in any code of sport, for good or ill, the ref's word is final - even if it's not always always seen by everyone to be fair.

I'm up for providing a civil space for discussion of things that unite and divide people in Northern Ireland. And there are no bars on who can participate.

But if you consistently and conciously break the rules, you're out for a fortnight - regardless of your politics!

Mick, I had no interest in the article until I saw the kettle a fish it stirred, so I read it. A couple of observations.

1) The article was about Prod feelings. You can disagree whether those feelings are justified, but
they do feel it.
2) They really seemed pissed at Mr. Blair. Sold down the river, so to speak. One minute they're the Queen's loyal subject, next scarificial lambs to GFA.
3) Is it true SF is bringing in big money? This is the big story to me. It was a Civil Rights tactic in the 70's to integrate all white neighborhoods, called "block busting". Offer 5 times the fair market value to the first white family that would sell to a black family, then prices would start to fall as the other panic sold to get out. SF ain't stupid, I reckon. No guns, just euros.

Mick,
I think you have completely missed the point I was trying to make.I was not complaining about the people you card - I have no argument here.Rather I was concerned by what I see as a pro-unionist tilt in you general commentary and in the various authorities (RDE being a case in point) you choose to highlight.

southern observer

I think it helps to think of this as a unionist site which is open-minded and accommodating of alternative views rather than trying to insist on objectivity. Blogs are by their nature subjective.

On the RDE article I have a problem with that style of article from a journalist with an established point of view.

A journalist goes into an area and luckily enough bumps into people who serve the political point that journalist wants to make.

The trouble from our perspective here is that you may form the view that an article of that type is dishonest and agenda driven but if you say that you are really attacking the journalists integrity which is against the rules.

So what is the ball here? Do we accept the word of the journalist that the picture they paint is accurate or are we entitled to a degree of scepticism?

This is after all a kind of opinion sampling and in the case of a poll it is legitimate to question the methodology.

This sort of clap trap is typical of the Tellegraph. It is increaingly more difficult to find real news in their pages. Even though slanted, at least The Newsletter sticks to the NEWS in it's non-editorial pages.
Bob Murphy
New Jersey

I think the article is quite extraordinary. Dealing with a small series of really inncocuous comments, the perspective is extrapolated in the aftermath of decommissioning into a series of unfounded unevidenced views of:

"Republicans" buying up all the land and paying over the odds for them (a really "what the heck"? one, that!)

Deliberate purchasing strategies to ensure future conflict??? (anything to do with an increasing Catholic population?)

Parroting of DUP lines on where is all this money coming from...hint, hint...as if no-one who wasn't Protestant should have any money.

Distinctly warped perspective, not based on a broad sweep of west of the Bann Protestant opinion.

It seems that when Ruth Dudley Edwards is blogged on Slugger, there's a free for all on the old play man not ball routine.

It's both tedious and it's bad politics.

RDE's view is selective in precisely the same way as Brian Feeney's view is selective. And it is no less valuable for it.

One thing which is tedious is this 'one is as bad/selective as the other' refrain, Mick. My own view is that Brian Feeney is a far fairer journalist than RDE will ever be.

For you to put a polemicist on the same level with a genuine historian is mischievious if not a deliberate distortion. It's similar tactic to that which you employed regarding the The Big Heist/Hype thread and which I pointed out also - for the record my own view is The Big Hype/Heist was less Woodward/Bernstein or Michael Moore than it was Comical Ali.

It's not merely a question of two warring tribes with their warring scribblers and with a supposedly neutral arbiter. One side is clearly wrong, hankering after a should be forgotten era of dominance, enabled and supported by the supposedly neutral British, while the other is trying to cast aside the imposed the second class citizenship and replace it with equality FOR ALL.

It seems that when Ruth Dudley Edwards is blogged on Slugger, there's a free for all on the old play man not ball routine.

It's both tedious and it's bad politics.

RDE's view is selective in precisely the same way as Brian Feeney's view is selective. And it is no less valuable for it.

One thing which is tedious is this 'one is as bad/selective as the other' refrain, Mick. My own view is that Brian Feeney is a far fairer journalist than RDE will ever be.

For you to put a polemicist on the same level with a genuine historian is mischievious if not a deliberate distortion. It's similar tactic to that which you employed regarding the The Big Heist/Hype thread and which I pointed out also - for the record my own view is The Big Hype/Heist was less Woodward/Bernstein or Michael Moore than it was Comical Ali.

It's not merely a question of two warring tribes with their warring scribblers and with a supposedly neutral arbiter. One side is clearly wrong, hankering after a should be forgotten era of dominance, enabled and supported by the supposedly neutral British, while the other is trying to cast aside the imposed the second class citizenship and replace it with equality FOR ALL.

If only those dang nationalists would do what they're told I'm sure RDE would be happy.

"Once," said a woman from a loyalist enclave, "we'd have wanted Tyrone to beat Kerry in the Gaelic football final. Now, because of the way their supporters carry on these days, we were mad keen for Kerry to win last weekend. We begrudged Tyrone their victory."

My problem is her uncritical reporting of this. Is there any substance to the assertion that Protestants would have supported Tyrone once? From what I heard when Down won All Irelands in the early 1990's this was not the case.

I think a comparison with Tom McGurk's article you mentioned a few weeks ago is apposite and that perhaps it is the confidence of Nationalists which leads to discomfort. However RDE doesn't explore this possibility, which is central to understanding how border area Protestants are feeling.

Overall while there may be much truth in RDE's article (and proabably is in the opinions she is reporting) it is not rigorous enough to convince and doesn't engage critically with the view she is reporting.

Tadh:

I dont believe her either. It just seems implausible that there would have been wide Unionist support for Tyrone if only themmuns hadnt...(fill in blank)

For you to put a polemicist on the same level with a genuine historian is mischievious if not a deliberate distortion.

Talk about distortions! RDE is, despite not having written a tome about Sinn Fei (yet!) a "geniune historian". Being biased against her is one thing, but being blindingly ignorant is quite another. You may not like her point of view, which is quite fair enough, but at least leave your own mischievious deliberate distortions aside!

Unbelievable how blinkered/begrudging some of the posters here are.

If RDE could give some actual examples of Republicans buying land at well over the oddds then she would have a story. As it is she is just repeating a unionist urban(rural?)myth. Her story makes no sense. Why would anyone pay £16000 per acre, for land only worth £4000 an acre, when an offer of £4500 an acre would be enough? The story is obviously nonsense and is only useful as an example of current unionise paranoia.
If it's true, then there must be a lot of prod farmers rubbing their hands out there.

irishman

"did Norn Iron fans get permission before their 'triumphalist parades' -you terminology- following the soccer victory over England"

No they didn't - that was my point.

Frank

"its better than carrying paramilitary flags during a triumphalist and agressive display "

The Sam Maguire Cup is named after an IRA member.

Brian Boru

"your comparison is unfair"

Both are celebrations of identity so on that basis they are comparable.

Tadhgin

If you feel hurt and indignant that protestant Tyrone people were not supporting the Tyrone GAA team, then you'll understand how NI supporters felt when nationalist commentators said that they hoped Northern Ireland were soundly beaten by England in the football. Its six of one and half a dozen of the other. We're nasty bigoted people here with what we perceive as our own sports, get used to it.

mrbigglesworth

I percieve a difference in that loyalists and unionists in general appear to be more upset with nationalists for not supporting the NI XI.

For nationalists withheld unionist support just makes victory all the sweeter.

Would people consider that a fair interpretation?

Fair_Deal,
Sam Maguire was an IRB member.

The IRA you are talking about which you say he was a member of is the same organisation as which President Mary McAleese is a member of - The Irish Defence Forces.

Would you have a problem with the McAleese Cup?

Sorry SO. Still I think there was a general point there that was worth making.

I think Henry's approach is probably a workable and sane way to treat the matter. But I would also add that in the last three years I've been accused of many things - unionist and nationalist.

One gentleman even accused me of taking my orders directly from Sinn Fein HQ in Sevastapol Street - which I'm sure caused great hilarity to anyone up there who was reading Slugger at the time.

The outputs are dictated by what I see as important. What people see in my choice story and commentary is a matter for them. I never attempted to argue people out of their working assumptions.

I try to be open ended in my appreciation of politics in Northern Ireland. Indeed the fight I most commonly have is with individuals who insist that certain other groups of their choosing are beyond the pale and therefore should not be heard.

And that changes. One time it might a unionist arguing that the SF voice should not be heard. The next it's that of a rural Ulster protestant Orangeman.

From the beginning I have only blogged what I consider to be worth reading. The 'slug' pieces I write are to some extent an advocacy of what I've understood to be important in the 'linked' piece, sometimes with certain conditions of contextual advice.

Since I tend to work in-the-round on these things, it's inevitable that by turns I'll be advocating material from the Newsletter to Daily Ireland. That may be why different folk see different biases in my output.

"Would you have a problem with the McAleese Cup?"

To the best of our knowledge she hasn't been implicated in the murder of anyone, so no.

"The IRA you are talking about which you say he was a member of is the same organisation as which President Mary McAleese is a member of - The Irish Defence Forces."

Well I grant you it evolved from the IRA, but are you sure you want to run with this one george? Your army has a uniform, is governed by international law, respects the rules of war and again-to the best of my knowledge- hasn't murdered innocent irish people because they didn't share the extreme politics of its self appointed oligarchy.The worst the IDF seem to have done is fail to prevent the odd weapon or bullet getting to the true successors of Maguire & Co, whose GOC is still General Slab

Mick
Surely you only know you are doing the right thing in NI when both sides think you are biased?

Henry:

So what is the ball here? Do we accept the word of the journalist that the picture they paint is accurate or are we entitled to a degree of scepticism?

I would like to say that I think Henry is making a valid point, and one that directly concerns the article in question. RDE is an exceptional scholar, but her views are without question particularly biased, sometimes to the point of being seriously inaccurate and provocative.

Her answer to any critic is usually to cast up her family background (a matter of public record), as if this grants her immunity in her commentary.

More than ever before, we need responsible journalism, especially as there is a vacuum in responsible leadership. Certainly, tell it like it is, but I think there is a moral imperative to be sure that the story being told is the truth, the WHOLE truth and nathin' but the truth

Darth,
you forgot to mention that my army also helped win my country's independence and ended the British occupation. You always that part.

Oh, I forgot, you are one of those strange fellows who believes it is for the British to decide if the people of Ireland have a right to a democratic parliament, an army and a nation state and not the people of Ireland. We will never agree on that so I won't "run with it" any further.

As for the successors of Maguire, he was pro-treaty so it would probably be Enda Kenny and Fine Gael, the natural home of the Southern Protestant in the eyes of the Orange Order.

The Slab is in your jurisdiction, not mine.

"Her answer to any critic is usually to cast up her family background (a matter of public record), as if this grants her immunity in her commentary"

What's her family background?

RDE does seem to get people talking, which is a tribute to her.

Her piece from the BT is clearly flagged as "opinion". It's a necessarily subjective account of how a community feels, written by a sympathetic observer.

You don't have to agree with it - but it's another perspective and I guess it all adds to the gaiety of the nation, to borrow an RDE-ism.

Thanks for flagging it.

well said George.

well said George.

RDE

RDE does seem to get people talking

Yet nobody has said that her article reflects any kind of reality. We haven't seen anyone backing up the claim that nationalists were spending 16 grand on land worth 4.

Of course they weren't her claims. She was quoting other people who didn't want to give their names.

It has all the credibility of an alien abduction story. Come to think of it those little men were green too.

Have you ever priced homes in West Belfast. The same thing is happening there. They are most certainly not worth the prices some of them are going for. Could it be the man quoted was speaking in a similar vein, that because of the demand, land that is worth less is being traded at inflated prices. Here is his quote:
"They're buying land all over the place at inflated prices, particularly in Prod areas." Land he thought worth £4,000 per acre has gone for £16,000.
The property market here is vastly inflated wherever you are trading.

Henry, my point exactly! It would be possible to find a quotation or situation to manipulate into any possible article, and this is where responsibility and sensitivity to the prevailing issues becomes critical.

In terms of answering you Curious, I am conscious of playing the ball, not the babe. Perhaps it is sufficient to say that RDE's grandmother was a Republican, and I have heard RDE say that she was reared within that tradition. (This is probably covered in her book on the OO.) On the occasions that I have heard her speak, however, she is vehemently anti-nationalist and refutes any claim that Catholics were subjected to any less rights in NI pre 1969.

Oilbhear,

"For you to put a polemicist on the same level with a genuine historian is mischievious if not a deliberate distortion".

Brian Feeney is an excellent historian and an erudite commentator. His work would not have appeared on Slugger as consistently as it has over the last three years if I did not think it was first class.

But are you seriously suggesting that his weekly column in the Irish News is not a work of polemic?

Like everything else, land and houses are worth whatever someone will pay for it. If land is going at £16000 an acre, I can only presume it is because someone else is prepared to pay £15500 for it. It's a free market. RDE is insinuating that there is something sinister going on but provides nothing in the way of evidence. The story doesn't make sense. Are Republicans bidding against themselves to inflate prices? Or are they slapping down outrageous bids without even waiting to see any counter offers? Which ever, it's patently rubbish.

Pacart - the point RDE is hinting at is that it is *not* a free market, and that Republicans are manipulating it in a targeted way to achieve some sinister end.

Again, this is a partisan piece which is about reporting the perceptions / feelings / ominous forebodings among a section of the protestant border community.

If you don't accept it on those terms - the terms in which it is clearly presented - you'll get terribly upset by the lack of checkable references, etc., and that will ruin your enjoyment of a dull overcast Monday afternoon.

The reverse is that the Prods are attempting to keep the Catholics out by over-inflating the price of land and it isn't working because the Catholics are willing to pay whatever price.

Or that the Prods are making a killing on over-inflating the price of land and selling it at jacked up prices to whatever sucker that pays.

The article's statement can be interpreted in a number of ways to suit your prejudices.

DST, fair enough, but RDE reports it like there "might be something there". It does say a lot about the unionist mindset that they are prepared to believe these stories which are obvious nonsense - urban/rural myths. It also throws some perspective on the loyalist riots of two weeks ago and the "reasons" behind them.
Unionists feel alienated and feel that they have been hard done by, but can't come up with specifics, so these myths are accepted as explanations. Just because someone feels something, it does not make it true.

Maybe the ULPC drove the price up

An Orange Order spokesperson said there were no formal links between the organisation and the Ulster Land and Property Company, which has been providing loans in a scheme specifically designed to deny Catholics the right to purchase property and land.

Presentation packs from the company have been distributed to Orange Order members, urging them to prevent property from "falling into nationalists' hands."

"We do not deny that the company exists nor that Orangemen are involved in it but what individual members get up to privately is not really our business provided it remains true to the basis principles of the organisation," said the spokesperson.

Isn't siege mentality a powerful thing, eh!?! A GAA team that gets togther in a county where they have sat down and put an excellent training and youth develpment scheme together, then as fruit of its labour, wins the big prize. But, it's just more evidence of them cafleeks gettin' everything to some, not a triumph of skill, effort, talent, endevour.....
And cafleeks starting to own/purchase land? Jaysus, they must have robbed the money, how else could it possibly have happened.

Sad, sad, sad article and I agree with others above that it is even sadder that there seems to be no criticism/evaluation of the contents offered.

I'm off to Australia in June for another two years, sometimes that pains me 'cause I love my home, other times, Jaysus, it's a big, fat relief!

Pacart

"Just because someone feels something, it does not make it true."

Absolutely. But this article is about reporting feelings, and it's written by someone who doesn't make a secret about where her sympathies lie.

As for the "loyalist" riots... I don't believe that shower had any rhyme or reason behind their vandalism. Just sheer opportunistic thuggery.

george says- "Fine Gael, the natural home of the Southern Protestant in the eyes of the Orange Order"
?????!!!!! When did the Orange Order ever endorse the Blue Shirts?

And we will indeed have to disagree about the actions of the IRA in 1919-21, which most objective tests would categorise as war crimes.... which is why I would have thought you might have chosen the Irish Army post Treaty as your benchmark rather than the murder gangs of Breen Barry and all the other ghouls now venerated as the nation's fathers.

Oh, and Generalissimo Slab lives on whichever side of the border suits him at any one time-the point is, he claims legitimacy from your constitution.

Oilbhear,

"For you to put a polemicist on the same level with a genuine historian is mischievious if not a deliberate distortion".

Brian Feeney is an excellent historian and an erudite commentator. His work would not have appeared on Slugger as consistently as it has over the last three years if I did not think it was first class.

But are you seriously suggesting that his weekly column in the Irish News is not a work of polemic?

I think it was gratuitious to bring Feeney into the equation at all - his work wasn't being discussed. Ruth Dudley Edwards, it was, whose work was being discussed and it was an article which seemed to me to be poorly researched which was under scrutiny. It was a throwaway remark which should have been thrown away before being inserted - we all do it from time to time and occasionally we're brought to heel for it. Fair enough. But I think it's fair enough to say that if you think it was playing the man, not the ball, when people were attacking RDE, then the same accusation could be made against you but, because Brian Feeney was not up for debate, your remark was both gratuitious, as I've said above, and out of order.

If I was a Protestant West of the Bann, I'd have that sinking feeling too.

Talk to any unionist long enough about the doomsday scenario of a potential united Ireland and Tyrone and Fermanagh are almost invariably the first names put forward as "acceptable losses".

Ditching these two to re-establish unionist hegemony seems to be more in vogue in 2005 than working to maintain the integrity of Northern Ireland.

Agricultural land prices fell 12% in the first quarter south of the border so the Protestants in these counties might be better advised to cash in now rather than waiting for their co-religionists to sell them on for a song in this century's Ulster sale.

"Get your counties now, two for the price of one."

Unionists feel alienated and feel that they have been hard done by, but can't come up with specifics, so these myths are accepted as explanations.

That may be a valid criticism - although much of the commentary on Slugger recently has been more than tinged with a whiff of mythologising.

It was interesting to note that when Ringland came up with his relatively upbeat view of a Unionist future that it attracted few comments from either nationalists or unionists.

Morning y'all, A few more observations:

1) To Southern observer for last night, I think the length of this thread vindicates Mick in his choice of articles(not that he needs it, it's his blog!)
2)Feelings are feelings. Unless of course you think the whole article was made up.
3)Like I said last night, the big money coming into the north, if true, is the story.However, "cut on the bias" says that Prods may be inflating prices to keep RC out. Either way real estate values are being manipulated for political purposes. If any of this is true,who'se doing it????

Now this is interesting about slugger.

I've always suspected that Mick had unionist sympathies, and I'm noticed them as well in some of the other commentators, as well as nationalist sympathies in others. (This came out most clearly in discussions around things like the American 2004 elections, for example.)

I don't have a problem with that, but it is something that maybe should be made more clear to people. It is distinct from other sites, like Nicholas Whyte's, where he makes clear his political affiliations. After all, I think it is probably proper for people who post to this site to say what their political affiliations are if they have them. I'd like to know, for example, if Mick is a member of the UUP or consistently votes for them, for example, since he basically runs the site.

Do people think there should be a page that lists the commentators, like Mick, Belfast Gonzo, etc. and has short bios and their political affiliations, if any? It would be helpful to me at least, but maybe others would view it as unhelpful or categorizing, etc.

I have to say I have a problem with this kind of reporting generally, though it certainly has become far more prevalent in recent years. The report aims to tell us how Protestants west of the Bann are feeling. Frankly, I think that the feelings alone, whether of an individual or a community, are a fairly poor subject for serious journalism. Serious journalism should be about reporting facts, facts that can be made to stand up. Feelings should only come into it once the facts have been substantiated.

For a serious journalist, it shouldn't be enough to report an allegation – that’s amateur hour. A professional takes the allegation as a starting point, then tries to stand it up. If the allegation can’t be stood up, if the facts simply do not bear out the allegation made (as is the case in this piece of “journalism”) then the journalist has two choices. Either a) spike the story, because there is no story; or b) report the allegation explicitly as an unsubstantiated one, and get a response from whomever the unsubstantiated response has been made against.

No person or community is entitled to expect that its feelings are newsworthy. If someone has a grievance then it’s up to them to put their case. If they have no case to put, then why should their feelings be the cause of concern for anyone else? The feelings of the nationalist community between 1921 and the 1960s didn’t count for a thing – it was only when they got organised politically that they were able to put forward their grievances. Feelings hadn’t a damn thing to do with it. They were able to point to real grievances in politics, in economics, in society, in employment, in housing, in education and so on. THAT was what mattered, NOT their feelings. A much younger Eddie McGrady memorably put it thus: "When an oppressed minority starts to read, the status quo is in trouble. When they start to count, the game is up."

FACTS. That’s what it’s all about. RDE has come back from her sojourn in Tyrone and Fermanagh with lots of conspiracy theories and a taste of the dark foreboding that she found there, but no facts. Any working reporter would be far too embarrassed to submit this sub-professional crap to any news editor. I know RDE isn’t actually a journalist by profession and has never actually worked as a reporter, which might explain why her “journalism” is so unethical and so shockingly dismissive of the most basic professional standards.

Any serious journalist will strive for accuracy, fairness and balance. Those are the triple pillars on which the profession rests. (And not, as many people commonly assume, impartiality or neutrality. Those ideals are rightly judged to be beyond human ability, and probably not even desirable anyway.) Even polemicists need not stray from these standards – you just choose your subjects accordingly.

In her reporting of the land deals, RDE implicitly gives the allegations a credibility that is not substantiated by fact. She is prepared to accept that if Orangemen think it’s going on, then that’s good enough for her. “Orangemen have reason to believe it has been a republican strategy to take over pockets of housing on parade routes in order to justify protests. Now, Protestants fear that apparently unlimited resources will be used in towns and villages to advance the republican project and bring confrontation to hitherto peaceful places.”

Fair play, she has crafted her sentences so as to provide the slightest distance between the reporter and the people making the allegation, but no professional journalist with a reputation they cared about would align themselves so closely with these allegations. Why? Because it gives credence to an unsubstantiated allegation.

Serious journalists live and die by their reputations, and this kind of reporting could be the ruination of a serious reporter. Of course for RDE it’s just a hobby. The gentleman (or lady) reporter doesn’t have to worry as much. So that’s one explanation as to why this piece falls so far short of the basic accuracy that real journalists strive for.

In her report of the clashes between Catholics and Protestants after the All Ireland, she talks about “the triumphalism that is accompanying Sinn Fein's 'greening of the west”. It’s the kind of editorialising that real reporters avoid at all costs. No editor would tolerate such fluff from a real reporter.

Accuracy? Fairness? Balance?

Then we get this: “GAA followers from the south are reported to be civil, but locals to have moved from being unfriendly to downright abusive and sometimes violent.” RDE is reporting this as fact – not allegation but fact. No evidence, just the declaration. This is dangerous allegation to make and it is shocking how lightly she makes it. One wonders does RDE really understand that northern affairs aren’t just some parlour game? Seriously, there’s some poor hurler in north Antrim who has a black eye or a broken jaw coming his way, and the Larne bigots who attack him will point to allegations like RDE’s for succour.

She makes a point of citing her background at regular intervals. Perhaps her (particularly privileged) background makes it difficult for her to understand that in the real world, such irresponsibility has consequences. Or to put it in language that an old Empire groupie might understand: loose talk can cost lives.

I would take strong issue with this: "Once," said a woman from a loyalist enclave, "we'd have wanted Tyrone to beat Kerry in the Gaelic football final. Now, because of the way their supporters carry on these days, we were mad keen for Kerry to win last weekend. We begrudged Tyrone their victory."

I remember the last time Tyrone played Kerry in ’86. A friend of my father’s from Dungannon was driving home from Croker through Moygashel and he (rather foolishly) had a red and white flag sticking out of the car. Guess what happened his car windows? I also remember getting off the train in Portadown in 2000 after Kerry heart-breakingly beat Armagh in the semi. Just outside the station was huge graffiti that read “Haha! No Sam for Armagh. Up Kerry!” I just thought: fair play, they’ve obviously been following events. An uncle of mine told me he remembered a very similar piece of graffiti there, at the very same station, when he got off the train having just come back from the heart-breaking final of 1953. My father also tells me the story of the time his family and a few others near Loughgall founded what turned out to be a short-lived GAA club. On the morning of the club’s first match they found that the goalposts had been pulled down and chopped to pieces.

Now, I mention those incidents (and there must have been thousands) not to make any point other than that the suggestion that anti-GAA bigotry among a certain section of the community is a NEW thing is absolutely preposterous. It’s beyond all reason. In fact, it’s maddening. You know how it is when someone stands in front of you and tells you something that you KNOW, without question of doubt, is a damned lie. And furthermore, you know they know it too. And they know you know it. (This is getting Rumsfeldesque.) Yet still you have to confront the lie. You know how maddening that is?

As for all that craic about Barabbas: all I can say is, it’s scary stuff. How delusional can you get? If you think you’re Napoleon you get straitjacketed; if you think you’re Jesus you get credence in the Tele and become a DUP candidate. (Incidentally, RDE’s glossing-over of Jim Dixon’s political credentials was a departure from the most basic of ethics. His political career is an absolutely crucial detail, yet she omitted to mention it. People have been censured by the NUJ for less.)

Let’s be honest here. The gist of this article is: Protestants west of the Bann are feeling insecure and don’t like the fact that the Catholic majority are much more confident about the future than they used to be. They feel betrayed that the old military apparatus or RUC and RIR/UDR/B Specials which ensured they could live as a superior minority is being stripped away.

Fair enough – those are major issues and worthy of journalistic investigation. The trouble here is that RDE so shrilly sides with the fearful and embittered Protestant community, even though that community has no empirical evidence with which to explain its feelings. She sides with the view that, essentially, Catholics feeling confident is something Protestants are entitled to view as a grievance. She sides with the view that Protestants in rural areas should be entitled to expect a massive military apparatus that will provide jobs and security from Catholics. And worst of all, she does so without any empirical evidence.

Which is why this report is so unserious. It is essentially a declaration that if you feel it, you don’t have to prove it. Any sentient being knows that the world doesn’t work that way. This is an unserious, emotionally-overwrought and incoherent ejaculation against the onset of progress and change.

Yep, RDE and the unionist community are well met.

George

I stand corrected, my source was an Irish News article from about a decade ago.

The IRB and IRA both believed in the use of violence. Also his closeness to Collins and the relationship between the IRA and IRB, his role as one of Collins' Chief Intelligence Officers, involvement in gunrunning, protecting a murder gang from capture....provides adequate response to frank's point.

"The trouble here is that RDE so shrilly sides with the fearful and embittered Protestant community..."

..no she isnt, in this case, it appears to be the most fearful and embittered. She then extrapolates...she has no right to do that.

Jo

"..no she isnt, in this case, it appears to be the most fearful and embittered. She then extrapolates...she has no right to do that."

Sorry Jo, I don't quite follow.

Incisive as ever from Billy Pilgrim, he really puts RDE to shame. My favourite bit was...
'After the dismantling of the watchtowers, the release of Sean Kelly and so on'

'so on' being what exactly, the 'feelings' stuff that can't be explained but should be pandered to?

Darthrumsfeld: "And we will indeed have to disagree about the actions of the IRA in 1919-21, which most objective tests would categorise as war crimes.... which is why I would have thought you might have chosen the Irish Army post Treaty as your benchmark rather than the murder gangs of Breen Barry and all the other ghouls now venerated as the nation's fathers."

The IRA was involved is sedition, a messy business, to be sure, but not terrorism, as demonstrated by their choice of targets -- primarily the instrumentality of British control over Ireland. The British response, such as the Auxilliaries and the Black and Tans, were far closer to state-sponsored terrorism than the pre-treaty IRA.

Fair Deal.Hi. You pointed out that Sam Maguire was a IRA (IRB) man. You forgot to mention that Ireland's premier sporting event honours a West Cork Protestant through its famous trophy - the Sam Maguire.

Its hard to play the ball with RDE. Her claims that the Republican movement is ploughing in thousands to buy property along the border is pretty silly stuff.

RDE writes:

... "Land he [an unnamed farmer] thought worth £4,000 per acre has gone for £16,000."

Wouldn't any respectable journalist look further into actual current land values to further their case/slant? Without question, RDE is an intelligent and thorough writer, so I can't help but wonder whether she did in fact look into current market values for land, as well as actual recent purchases and who actually made those purchases ... and landed flat, once she realized the farmer's accusations went nowhere. Stuck with the choice of having a fair and balance piece or a provactive whataboutery piece, RDE apparently chose the latter.

... that should read 'fair and balanceD'

Oilbhear,

I've been wondering where the obvious gap in our perceptions has come about. Last night (between the ungodly hours of 11.30pm and 1.30am), I stripped out 5 posts and removed the man playing from a few others. So you may not have the original context of my man playing remarks.

I generally rely on the willingness of people to keep to the play the ball rule. And I certainly do not enjoy sitting up late on a Sunday evening clearing up the mess after other people's political incontinence.

I can understand why people get enflamed and angry. That's a part of what all polemicists do. But there are plenty of other spaces on the net for people simply to vent spleen about Dudley Edwards or Feeney.

But not on Slugger!

I appreciate that some may not like my editorial choice. There is a very easy solution to that. Set up your own blog! Other former readers have done it to great effect.

Don't let 'em grind you down Mick!

I'll stick up for you in the face of some criticism. Sure, Slugger is probably leans more towards unionism than anything else but I have never felt in the least bit uncomfortable blogging here these last two years. I don't think there's any bias here - a slight tendency maybe, but that's just human, and a very different thing from bias.

Ah, I could ramble all night. In short: Mick Fealty for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Agreed. the very fact that thwere is a resonable balance of unionist and nationalist posters is all the proof required that this is a well run house.

In fact I'm very glad that this article was brought to our attention. Because the more I think about it the worse it gets. If somnmeone went into an area where immigrants lived they could quite easily find people willing to repeat the fanciful tales spread and believed by bewildered and even fearful people. But if they printed it the their own standing as journalists would be an issue.

I think that SoT is edited from a Unionist perspective and most of the topics chosen come from that angle - long may it continue! I am a Republican and I enjoy the debate, perspective and the challenge. Indeed I sometimes worry that there are too many Republican contributions as Unionists need space to think and shouting them down does not bode well for the secular UI I aspire towards.

However I would hate to think that Slugger, like for example Instapundit, was misrepresenting the definite position taken by the editorial team on many of the topics being discussed as disinterested and impartial analysis of whatever news is current. Slugger does need to be apolitical but it should not be presented as such either.

Billy Pilgrim - congratulations my friend, your 5:52 p.m. is, IMHO, THE finest post ever to grace Slugger's pages. I'm serious - superb. Keep doing what you're doing etc.

In Awe

Jesus, thanks mate.

(Very embarrassed now.)

Billy Pilgrim & In Awe,

Now you've piqued my interest ... though i think i'll need a cup of coffee before setting out to read Billy's entire 5:52 blog! :)

Mick,
Second time round !
Stringing together a bunch of unnamed interviewees prejudices as pegs to reinforce some pretty racist and sectarian stereotyping of the Northern minority is not nice.
Take a look at it whats said!
Accusing the local members of the minority of an increased confidence can only mean that the unnamed Fermanagh Protestant quoted wants them reverted to unconfidence ; to their proper place in his ideal society. Not nice
Ms Dudley Edwards herself then puts this on the peg of “triumphalism”. A subjective concept at the best of times, the mesage here is clear enough though - she wants a subservient nationalist people. That’s not nice either.
We are not told what the basis is for the ‘in your face’ complaint of the unnamed south Tyrone policeman. Could be hes is a shy retiring soul with a low threshold for direct responses. However to go on to claim that this directness is of itself ‘increasing tension by the minute’ can only mean that he also believes that nationalists need to become shy and subservient so as to reduce this ‘tension’ . We’re not told if he ‘has issues’ but either way this is a worrying view from a policeman. Maybe the unnamed policeman at the receiving end of the ‘uniform looking good on me’ jibe is the same one –if so, lack of a sense of humour would be at least part of the diagnosis.
RDE may be right that the past attitude of ‘rural Protestants’ to the GAA was indifference but if its now hostility, it’s a logical non sequitur to lay this at the feet of nationalists. Its normal for Irish county supporters to celebrate the Sam Maguire Cup with “noisy cavalcades with blaring horns”. People in most other parts of the world tend do much the same ; so what !?.
The complaint of the nameless farmer about “funny” money is murky. It could mean either that fake notes are involved or that its otherwise ill-gotten. If his pals are getting 16k for 4 k value land in what he terms ‘Prod areas’ , its not clear what exactly his bitch is – maybe its concern that Prods are accepting payment in fake money (unlikely ?), that nationalists are paying too much(hardly?), that nationalists are buying land in ‘Prod areas’ or that the money is stolen.
It would be difficult for nationalists – who are after all an increasing share of the population and who also do need to live in houses, to buy one which isn’t passed by one of the large number of Orange parades. It is a bit of jump to extrapolate from that to some kind of a republican takeover masterplan. With ‘apparently unlimited resources’, theres the hint of some sort of dark vastly-funded conspiracy. Wonder who might be bankrolling this –the Pope, Bertie maybe. While the conclusion drawn that this will bring confrontation to ‘hitherto peaceful places’ is in my view a sectarian one, Ms Dudley Edwards peg that this will ‘stiffen the resolve of those who refused to be murdered into a united Ireland’ might be blood–curdling if it was’nt so (unintentionally?) comedic.
Things really begin to foam at the mouth towards the end though. Theres talk of ‘holding the line against the enemy, of ‘sacrificing the law-abiding to the lawless’, of ‘chosing Barabbas over Jesus’, of ‘compromises with the wicked’ and –in case the gentle reader hadn’t already got the message and reached for a weapon - we have ‘outrage that Catholics vote for murderers’.
This is seriously ugly stuff even if RDE is a truly lovely person.

Mick - I agree with others, you do a great job for all of us here on Slugger (that's why we all spend so much time hanging out here) and we would be lost without you. Personally, I've always tagged you as a wet Ulster Unionist, but like, so what? You provide a soapbox for all of us regardless of political opinion and some of the spin off blogs are pretty good as well. And remember, the first person to set up their own blog in a huff was David Vance...

Some Prods will are so warped by mistrust and hatred of their Nationalist neighbours that they would support anybody for anything so long as they're not an Ulster Taig. Similarly, some Taigs are so... well, you've all read the Robin Livingstone article. This is not news. It might be to Ruth Dudley-Edwards, so riven with Dublin 4 self-loathing as she is that she gets a special pair of rose-tinted glasses out any time she writes an article about Unionism, but I [fx:clears throat, tries not to feel like a hypocrite] respect her voice as one which deserves to be heard as part of our new Rainbow Nation.

The land prices stuff strikes me as particularly bizarre. The Town and Country Planning Act in the UK is now interpreted and implemented as a bulwark for articulate, middle-class, NIMBY interests against the needs of the young and relatively poor, which leads to over-inflated residential property prices across the UK, and particularly so in Northern Ireland with a young and growing population. However, agriculture in all rich countries is in crisis despite ridiculous generous subsidy schemes and agricultural land prices are hardly booming at the moment. If these stories are true then there must be an awful lot of Catholic farmers in the West with a lot more cash sloshing around their pockets than their Protestant counterparts - which I find rather difficult to believe. I think this one deserves an investigation by urbanmyths.com.

Then again Ruth has never been that sharp in spotting that bigotry which invites you in for a nice cup of tea and a wee bun is still bigotry.

Billy Pilgrim:

Wow. That really is a great commentary. (re:5:54 post).

Mick Fealty:
I first came across this website right around the time of the Northern Bank robbery (remember that?) and have, since then, been reading it daily. In fact, it’s the first thing I do in the morning.

Quite frankly, it's beyond compare. You obviously work your butt off on it and have put your heart and soul into it -- believe me, it shows. While clearly a Unionist, you don’t, in my humble opinion, seem to let that hold any sway when refereeing the site (then again, I’ve never been redcarded :) ) . Please keep up the exceptional, beyond compare work that it takes to keep this weblog going.

Loyalists threatening to dig up Catholic graves not worthy of a thread ??

Quick interpolation:

If I'm a Unionist, what on earth has happened to all our former unionist readers? They're not turning up at Slugger's new ecumenical Irish speaking Lodge either!!

Night all! Just keep keeping it hard and clean!!

Billy P,
The others are right -powerful piece. Hot shit. Wish Id written it! Ever think of trying for a job with the Telegraph ?

Mick,

"If I'm a Unionist ..."

If? Aw, g'wan!

"what on earth has happened to all our former unionist readers?"

Perhaps RDE was right ... it is a conspiracy! Maybe Sinn Fein bought all the nationalist and republican bloggers the more expensive T1 internet lines, leaving all the unionist and loyalist bloggers out in the cold, left with only the less expensive and more faulty dial-ups, leaving them paralyzed with the fear of not being able to reply to the upwardly-posting nationalist and republican bloggers!

"Slugger's new ecumenical Irish speaking Lodge either!!"

I didn't know there was such a thing! Excuse me, fellow bloggers, but exactly how long does it take to be accepted into the Slugger community and invited to one of its rangs?

If I'm a Unionist, what on earth has happened to all our former unionist readers?

Mick, don't worry - we all love you anyway. Seriously - as a failed blogger I know how much work this involves and I really, really, really appreciate it and know lots of others do too.

I hope that makes you feel suitably affirmed!

Might I suggest that if everyone loves Mick and anyone has twenty quid* to spare that they grab their credit card and hit the "Make a Donation" button?

I did it about a about a week ago to assuage my atheist guilt and, almost immediately, I felt poorer.

* A warning to Eurozoners - the paypal page is in sterling.

Had I but world enough and time, I would reply to all of you individually. However, I haven't, so may I just say that I'm enjoying the debate.

My general comment is that I was asked by the Belfast Telegraph to write an article in a series about the state of 'troubled Protestant communities' - not 'troubled Catholic communities' - from the perspective of rural areas I know well. That's what I duly did.

I don't take offence easily, but I protest at being accused by Young Fogey of being of Dublin 4. I was a Northsider until I left Ireland, and although it's true that my parents later moved to Donnybrook, it would be unfair to visit their sins on their children.

Those of you who seem convinced that I never criticise Protestants/unionists/loyalists, might have a look at my website (www.ruthdudleyedwards.co.uk) and see e.g. the article of 21 August. I freely admit that I mostly attack Sinn Fein/IRA, but that is because I'm a patriot who gets a bit fretful about the danger they pose to Irish democracy.

Ruth

I don't take offence easily, but I protest at being accused by Young Fogey of being of Dublin 4. I was a Northsider until I left Ireland

Sorry, Ruth, that was a bit near the knuckle! ;-)

No need to reply to us all individually Ruth - a reasoned response to Billy Pilgrim's 5:52 will be sufficient.

Aye, He's got more brain matter than the rest of us combined. Razor-sharp retort, BP.

It would be interesting if Ruth could reply directly to Billy Pilgrim's post.

I'm interested in hearing her reply.

Mick,

Read a few comments directed to you all i have to say is that you do a great job keep it up...

Hi Ruth
Its good to see you join the debate, and I am glad you have been following the thread.

Anything I would say pales in comparison to Billy Pilgrim's piece earlier, but I just want to add one small note.

Accepting that you were invited to contribute this piece to the Telly is fine. However, as many of the contributors have noted, this skewed the article to the point of serious, troubling and potentially damaging bias. Surely the Telegraph would not have objected to a reasoned argument, and an introduction of a little balance in what you wrote.

For those of us living here, this is not a game, this is our reality. It's fine to write and pontificate on what you perceive to be our reality, but please think twice when that view becomes perilously close to incitement.

Time to debunk some of the dubious metaphysics.Personally I find this whole man/ball thing a trifle spurious.Man and ball are completely separate entities in the physical sphere-you can tell the man from the ball.But this here is a different matter.

Yeats famously said:
'how can you tell the dancer from the dance?'
Similarly how can you tell the opinionator from the opinion?

The fact is that if you honestly believe,after prolonged,hard,objective evaluation,that RDE's
political analyses are agenda-driven,procrustean,tendentious,partisan,intellectually porous,and smack of journalistic indolence how can you say this without appearing to be ad hominem?

In the course of some e mail correspondence with her (I'm sure she won't mind me quoting this snippet) I threw the 'partisan' bit at her whereupon she made the point that there were innumerable journalists plugging the nationalist line.The(unanswered)point was then made that if you took the view that it was correct to be pro-unionist when the general journalistic drift was nationalist and pro-nationalist when the general journalistic drift was unionist,irrespective of the balance of intrinsic merit between both viewpoints at a particular time,intellectual maldeductions (to put it mildly) were inevitable.
As for her using her background as a defence against alleged partisanship,well a similar argument would hardly cut ice with her if used as a defence by Susan MacKay.

Any way back to her main text.
The opener is a trifle scary:

They're quare and cocky and confident...

This sounds disturbingly like postbellum southern whites decrying 'uppity niggers'.


GAA followers from the south are reported to be civil


It must have been gutwrenching to have reported a good word said from that source about the south!One gets the impression of having to get this out of the way with the utmost brevity before getting on to more comfortable territory.


Writing a political piece about the political state of play in Tyrone/Fermanagh without even *one* quote from the majority community there indicates RDE's recurring,and characteristically Orwellian view of the latter as 'nonpeople'.The fact that she may have been specifically detailed to write about the unionist side is no excuse.Also carrying a barrage of quotations without making any attempt to ascertain their validity or otherwise,which would have necessarily involved speaking to the nationalist side,is indefensible.


Incidentally,having been a meticulous RDE- watcher in the Sindo,I would take her above protestations with a grain of salt- in the last five years or so I can only recall her mentioning one instance of oppression of the nationalist community-a tangential reference to Holycross.Also she did more than actually report a range of opinions.It is quite clear from reading her piece that she unquestioningly accepted the *validity* of those opinions.


BTW,in case anyone thinks I am partisan in the other direction,I was appalled by the 6 county GAA vote on rule 42 and I also believe the GAA should de-sectarianise itself by getting rid of all the 'dead IRA hero' nomenclature.

Again,congrats to Billy Pilgrim,

"They're buying land all over the place at inflated prices, particularly in Prod areas." Land he thought worth £4,000 per acre has gone for £16,000.

Is this building land or agricultural land?

I for one can't wait to see the debate when Susan McKay or Anne Cadwallader writes a piece for Daily Ireland or the Sunday Business Post about the perceptions of Catholics in Ballymena and what they think the Unionists are doing to them.

Of course, they will have written them doing all the things suggested here, and there will be no need for anyone to complain about anything.

stop the snickers at the back please

Dread Cthulhu

"The IRA was involved is sedition, a messy business, to be sure, but not terrorism, as demonstrated by their choice of targets"

Hmmm. Some revisionism going on here methinks. I suggest you read an excellent little pamphlet called 'The Good Old IRA' by Danny Morrison.

Jeremy

I was well aware sam maguire was a protestant. So what? The discussion was about invovlement/connection with paramilitarism not religion.

No need to get in a huff, Mick. I made an observation which I thought to be valid - you regularily chide commenters for abusing the man not ball rule, I simply pointed out that you were guilty - in the case of comparing Brian Feeney to RDE - of playing the man, and doing so in a gratuitious manner. I would regard that as an offensive remark, as would, I'm sure, many working journalists of whatever hue.

Balance, how are ya?

Susan McKay articles like these you mean;

http://www.sluggerotoole.com/archives/2005/09/
no_leadership_t.php
http://www.sluggerotoole.com/archives/2005/09/
love_ulster_won.php
http://www.sluggerotoole.com/archives/2005/06/
survey_was_vali.php
http://www.sluggerotoole.com/archives/2005/05/
strange_silence.php

And Ann Cadwallader pieces like this:
http://www.sluggerotoole.com/archives/2005/03/
campaign_stoppi.php

OC, you know me better than that. I'm not huffing with you or with anyone who, by and large, plays the ball.

As for being offensive. Show me the news organ that has never caused offence, and I'll show you the parish newsletter. ;-)

As for being offensive. Show me the news organ that has never caused offence, and I'll show you the parish newsletter. ;-)

First it's playing the man not the ball, now it's whataboutery - whatever next? ;-)!

Where I come from, we like to hop the ball to see how it bounces.....

No need to reply to us all individually Ruth - a reasoned response to Billy Pilgrim's 5:52 will be sufficient.

I think that is a fair request.

Take a look at today's Anne Cadwallaer in Daily Ireland via Nuzhound, Fair Deal. Breathtaking stuff. But in a completely balanced, non-partisan, unbiased, well investigated way, of course.

Children as political backdrop

Best at it in Ireland this year too! Congrats to the women btw! On the field the women definately play the ball more than the men, and the game flows all the more fluently for it!

Balanced

Took a look. That is three minutes of my life I'll never get back again (apologies to west wing).

It is all a lot of wriggling about what McAleese meant to say and what we should have assumed etc and then a subtext to justify here original comments.

As for the Londonderry stuff the sectarian assault on the West Bank Protestants have been going on for decades with little respite. I hope to God this new intiative works but past experience would lead to scepticism.

"The IRA was involved is sedition, a messy business, to be sure, but not terrorism, as demonstrated by their choice of targets -- primarily the instrumentality of British control over Ireland"

oh yeah? Like the notorious septuagenarian superspy Mrs Lindsay of Coachford. Together with the local parish priest she alerted the Army of an impending IRA ambush. Guess which one got disappeared?Go on-guess.
Or the Hornibrook family who had the temerity to protect their house when the IRA broke in at night and were summarily tortured and shot for their pains?
Or the elderly retired solicitor in Dunmanway who was murdered , but that's ok because he was a notorious supplier of information to the brits (or as the rest of the world would term it a law-abiding citizen.)?

What a unfortunate coincidence that they were all protestants,eh?

And let's not have the usual Meda Ryan hogwash trawled out to justify this. As I recall one of the footnotes in her book cites as a "source" someone who was told a Dunmanway victim was an informer when the source was a child of a ten, and the whole town knew it. That must have been just after he was told to eat up his greens or the bogeyman would get him.

Darth Rumsfeld: "oh yeah? Like the notorious septuagenarian superspy Mrs Lindsay of Coachford. Together with the local parish priest she alerted the Army of an impending IRA ambush. Guess which one got disappeared?Go on-guess.
Or the Hornibrook family who had the temerity to protect their house when the IRA broke in at night and were summarily tortured and shot for their pains?
Or the elderly retired solicitor in Dunmanway who was murdered , but that's ok because he was a notorious supplier of information to the brits (or as the rest of the world would term it a law-abiding citizen.)?"

Whataboutery, DR, from you?? Shocked, shocked I am.

But, yes, informers are, at their root, part of the instrument of control. In modern parlance its called "operational security." At least, in the cases you cite, their was an understandable motive. Can you explain / rationalize the massacre at Croake Park?? I doubt it, as I've asked you before, but hope springs eternal.

"What a unfortunate coincidence that they were all protestants,eh?"

Compared to the number of Catholic collaberators killed by the IRA, I can safely say the IRA was ecumenical in their treatment of informers. Can you say the same about the Black and Tans or the Auxilliaries and their excesses?

Billy Pilgrim, just read your yesterday's post - excellent. The power of myths is underestimated, and often destructive, they should be challenged vigorously. Did anyone see that programme earlier this year about the rise of the NeoCons in the States. One of their key strategies(successful) was the selling of such myths to the American public. Often the myths reveal underlying neuroses but they bolster rather than mollify them. I can remember the early days of the Troubles and being told by all my Protestant friends (I was @10 at the time) that the Civil Rights movement was entirely controlled by the IRA and that the aim was to take over N.I. and push out all the Prods. They were obviously repeating what they were hearing at home. No doubt RDE, or her equivalent, would have reported these "feelings" as valid, when a vastly more useful service would have been done by exposing them as nonsense.

“…what on earth has happened to all our former unionist readers?”
At least one seems to litter nearly every poster on this site today.

To Mrs. Ruth Dudley Edwards
“I'm a patriot who gets a bit fretful about the danger they (Sinn Fein/IRA) pose to Irish democracy.”
And I get a wee bit peevish, when people tell me that there is a danger to democracy.

Sincerely,
Betty

As someone who once wrote and presented a documentary on Protestants living on the border i'm not in the least surprised at the concentrated invective being hurled at RDE from the green corner.

Irish Republicanism is a predominantly fascist ideology which cannot assimilate or tolerate different perspectives which interfere with their world view.

RDE as a Southerner has developed an instinctive ear for the voice of authentic rural northern protestants and the way she conveys their sense of powerlessness and pessimism is dramatic and important.

It's particularly imnportant for any constitutional Nationalists left in the room to pay attention to the decaying sense of identity which is described. You need to build a bridge with these people and avoid the same bigoted trumphalism demonstrated by protestants in '69.

If the centre cannot hold and forge an agreed space here in the North, the future is not bright (Green or Orange) for anyone. Excepting the headbangers either side who don't seem to care that they are forcing us into our own wee Apocalypse theme park.

good old dread-always prepared to see the good in people. So Jean McConville was a casualty of war too-or is it just possible that all these excuses for murder were made up after the event? And hey,the good guys murdered Catholics too, proving their noble motivation!!

Perhaps they might have been on stronger ground if they'd had any evidence rather than attempt to denigrate people after they had murdered them. I mean was the British Empire really so weak that it depended on a network of geriatrics to help it take on the IRA? Perhaps they all met up at the Senior Citizens' Christmas Party and plotted the assassination of Collins. Or perhaps they were too old or too set in their ways to get out, and were an easy target. Heaven only knows what these desperadoes could have achieved if they'd had all their own teeth. And those armoured bath chairs nearly stopped the flying volumns.

And wouldn't it be nice if the Hornibrook and Lindsay families were allowed a body to bury, a mere 84 years after the event. There might be a grandchild or remoter descendant still around for whom the ongoing silence of the community is still painful, and if Meda Ryan can persuade her sources to assist, they'd be a tad more credible to this sceptical reader.

Nah, that would mean that the motive wasn't "understandable"-such a useful word for the apologists for killers, right up there with "regrettable".

as for the instrument of "control"-well that was the inconvenient fact that-until they were told at the point of a gun that they were getting a republic and those who opposed it had to go- most irish people weren't actually that bothered about independence, and cewrtainly hadn't voted for it.

It's not whataboutery to point out the reality of terrorism, even if the consequences plainly don't bother those who admire its perpetrators.

What would be nice would be a bit of honesty-like "Sure we had to teach a few prods and Unionists an example- pour discourager les autres-and we weren't really that bothered about whether we had a mandate or moral justification for it. Sure morality never bothered Lenin/Hitler/Mao/Gerry and although we're sensitive to the compsarison, the only difference is as to the degree"

In a strange way, we'd respect you a lot more.

Still waiting Ruth............

Everyone,

"Might I suggest that if everyone loves Mick and anyone has twenty quid* to spare that they grab their credit card and hit the "Make a Donation" button?" -- Shay Begorrah

Done and done -- just sent over 20 quid, plus another 5 for giving Mick a hard time in my last post.

... anyone else?

Irish Republicanism is a predominantly fascist ideology which cannot assimilate or tolerate different perspectives which interfere with their world view. - BogExile

Do a quick web search for the characteristics of fascism and then gives us some examples of how Republican ideology matches a simple majority of them.

To help you here is a nice list from a web site devoted to revision notes for UK students.

http://www.revision-notes.co.uk/revision/22.html

• Strongly nationalistic
• Strongly/Violently anti-Communist
• Anti-Liberal-democratic
• Opposed to international org.
• Elitist and Authoritarian (‘Obedience not discussion’ — Mussolini)
• Close identity btw the party and the state
• Strongly anti-Semitic
• Glorified war (promoted Social Darwinism)
• Profoundly racist
• Had a paramilitary wing (ie: Blackshirts / S.A.)
• Promoted the myth of the race (use victories of the past)
• Placed emphasis on the myth of the predestined leader
• Made great use of symbolism (ie: swastika)
• Did not have a clear doctrinal base

I wonder can you think of any other NI political ideologies who might match these characteristics a little more closely than Republicanism?

Shay, the thought and the money are gratefully received. The paypal account into which such donations go is where the money is drawn from to pay the increasing bandwidth costs. I'm considering introducing occasional podcasts, which with our current readership is likely to hammer the current arrangement to hell.

So please be my guest and post the money in whatever quantities you can manage. I can't promise to always be polticially correct with it but, we'll try to keep the Slugger wagon moving forward in all manner of technologically interesting ways!

Er,

Last time I checked, the Sinners were very fond of nationalism and socialism: Let's see what happend if we put these two ingredients together, children:

Wow!

National Socialism.

If the cap fits...

Oh and by the way Shay, if you think you could dignify the actions of Militant Loyalism by ascribing it an ideology you've been at the giggly juice. it needs a lead and a muzzle, not a label.

Hello Mr Fealty.

I know a subscription service just does not match the ethos of Slugger but I do think it would be no harm to have some way to encourage people to donate other than appealing to their sense of common decency (for me it was guilt).

Could you have some way to show the costs you incur versus donations (maybe a little ticker on the home page saying how many days Slugger has left to run on the current funds?). I do not know whether you or the other editors should grab a pay packet or whether Slugger editing is its own sadomasochistic reward.

As a suggestion appealing to vanity is always a good one, a friends of Slugger page where people who have ponied up get to leave some short statement (probably of incoherent rage, almost certainly comparing their opponents to Nazis, probably with a small note to demonstrate that some of their best friends are Protestants/Catholics/victims of sectarian attack as self justification).

DR: "It's not whataboutery to point out the reality of terrorism, even if the consequences plainly don't bother those who admire its perpetrators."

They entered the fray when they informed, just as French collaberators took sides in WW2 when they informed on the Resistance, joined the Milice or supported the Vichy gov't. Are you telling me they didn't understand the risks of informing? Likewise, the British / Unionist policy of civilian reprisal and the use of the Black and Tans -- little better than freebooters -- certainly contributed to the hardness of the IRA stance.

DR: "What would be nice would be a bit of honesty-like "Sure we had to teach a few prods and Unionists an example- pour discourager les autres-and we weren't really that bothered about whether we had a mandate or moral justification for it. Sure morality never bothered Lenin/Hitler/Mao/Gerry and although we're sensitive to the compsarison, the only difference is as to the degree"

Is that your explanation of Croake Park, then, DR? Just a bunch of Unionist thugs dressed in military uniforms out to teach "those demmed Taigs" a lesson, to discourage the cause of Nationalism? That is your answer on why the Auxilliaries fired into the crowd of spectators at a GAA match, killing 14 and wounding dozens, most of whom, in all likelihood, had no connection to the IRA? At least the informers chose to involve themselves in the Anglo-Irish war, DR. Deliberate choice, with a somewhat Newtonian cause and effect. What was the "cause" that led to the "effect" at Croake Parke? BTW, the election in 1918 showed that there was a mandate in Ireland for home rule / independence among the Irish. If anything, the British / Unionist policy of reprisal against the general populace only enlarged that mandate.

"In a strange way, we'd respect you a lot more. "

Gotta mouse in your pocket, DR, or are you using the Royal "we?" To put it plain, in a not so strange way, DR, your "respect" means less than nothing to me. Your obvious entusiasm to dive into "whataboutery" of this case or that case when the nationalist is the agressor, combined with your inability to reciprocate when directly addressed on Unionist violence, tells me all I need about what your "respect" would be worth.

Still waiting Ruth............

Maybe if we offered her four times what she's worth.

'Still waiting Ruth............'

Pipe down lads, sure you've all got quare and cocky and confident all of a sudden...

I wonder can you think of any other NI political ideologies who might match these characteristics a little more closely than Republicanism?

"Strongly nationalistic"

The British Empire?

"Strongly/Violently anti-Communist"

the BE supported the White Russians...

"Elitist and Authoritarian (‘Obedience not discussion’ — Mussolini)"

The British Empire...

"Close identity btw the party and the state"

Through the royal figurehead...

"Strongly anti-Semitic "

Par for the course at the time...

"Glorified war (promoted Social Darwinism)"

Again, the essence of the Empire, their economic doctrine, et. al.

"Profoundly racist"

The White Man's burdern anyone?

"Had a paramilitary wing (ie: Blackshirts / S.A.) "

Black and Tans, the Auxilliary

"Promoted the myth of the race (use victories of the past)"

Ah, Cromwell, Wellington and Nelson... hoorah for the Battle of the Boyne

"Placed emphasis on the myth of the predestined leader "

again, the royal figurehead

SB,

On the basis of that formula I owe Mick the GDP of Latvia.

SB,

On the basis of that formula I owe Mick the GDP of Latvia.

This has unexpectedly gotten almost back to the point BogExile/Darth.

You could say without fear of contradiction that the allies in world world two did some pretty awful stuff (the bombing of Dresden et al, the betrayal of the Greek partisans after the war, , Stalins mass ethnic movements and redawing of borders, yada, yada, yada) yet no one is going to seriously argue that these events, some of which will inevitably be acknowledeged as war crimes, invalidate either the aims of the Allies or the use of force (though of course you could argue that the allies just became the good guys because the Axis were undoubtedly the bad ones).

War makes dogs of men and the actions of the IRA in the war of independence were murderous but certainly no more so than those of Britain in almost every war of the twentieth century.

Examples of wrong doing do not in themselves demonstrate aims or methods that are wrong - what you need for that is an accounting of the opposing forces, the totality of their actions, their aims and what behaviour was generally considered acceptable at the time.

Correspondingly the wars of independence that freed many of the worlds colonies from their exploitative masters were a good achieved with often dreadful losses (of life and humanity). Ireland's war of independence was a small but important example that freedom and self determination were possible. Most Irish people remain proud of that.

What remains to be decided is if the situation of the nationalist population in the early seventies justified the start of twenty five years of war/insurgency/terrorism but that is where the debate lies - not about the evils of the IRA campaign but about the relative balance of wrongs.

You can call it whataboutery, I call it history and politics.

so that's it dread-they were all collaborators, cos the IRA said so-just like Jean McConville. Slight difference between Vichy France occupied by the Nazis and Ireland as a free part of the United Kingdom , of course, but Godwin's law obviously has escaped you.

And then you cast up about Croke Park out of the same side of the mouth that denounces whataboutery!!!! Tell you what. I can say some innocent people were killed at Croke Park, though probably many of them were crushed to death as opposed to shot (minor point obviously, since they were dead)- but can you say the IRA murdered innocent people because of their politicasl or religious beliefs?
I can say that not every act of the crown forces in Ireland was within the law-but can you say any of the IRA's actions were?
I can say that most British people are ashamed of any excesses perpetrated in their name by their armed forces-let's hear you say you're ashamed of people who threw two live human beings into a furnace in Tralee,buried an old man up to his neck at the sea shore so he drowned, shot unarmed old men and women and labelled them informers, blew up oxford Street Bus station, La Mon hotel, the Droppin Well, Darkley etc etc.
Shock us- what did the IRA ever
do wrong?

DR:"Tell you what. I can say some innocent people were killed at Croke Park, though probably many of them were crushed to death as opposed to shot (minor point obviously, since they were dead)- but can you say the IRA murdered innocent people because of their politicasl or religious beliefs?"

14 people, actually, with several dozen wounded. Likewise, being crushed does not excuse the pro-Union Auxies, seeing as were not discussing shoddy construction, but an acto fo state-sponsored terrorism, a reprisal against civilian populations. That they may have been killed in the stampede caused by the shooting, as opposed to being shot, makes no difference.

As for IRA targets -- political -- yes, the act of being part of the Unionist mechanism of control is political. Religious... for the ORIGINAL IRA, a distinct and seperate entity from the Provos, the Real, the Etc... for religious reasons, not so much. As I said, a great many of the informers, police, tax collectors, et al, assaulted by the IRA were Catholic.

DR: "And then you cast up about Croke Park out of the same side of the mouth that denounces whataboutery!!!! "

As an example, in the main -- you're never had the wherewithal to answer (and still haven't, btw, leastwise not the questions asked). Either we both are allowed "whataboutery" or neither of us are. As someone who has received the rough edge from you previously over that sort of thing, I was glad to return the favor.

As for the IRA doing wrong -- I believe my nephew would put it best... "Well, Duh!!" Hard times make men hard, and, thusly ugly things happen. The difference, however, is that with the Original IRA, it was the exception, as opposed to the Black and Tans / Auxies, where, empowered by the British policy of civilian reprisal, it was the rule. Your pretty fiction about a "free Ireland" is a hoot, btw. Why, pray tell, if things were so rosy and wonderful in Ireland, as you suggest, were there so many rebellions?

'Examples of wrong doing do not in themselves demonstrate aims or methods that are wrong'

In other words, as long as the end is legitimate, the means are at most an unhelpful distraction. Cold comfort, to, for example the Catholic man chained to his van and turned into a human bomb by 'volunteers.'

War does make dogs of men, but nasty, low level, sectarian cowardice scuttling through hedges to commit murder in the night against unarmed and helpless human beings makes them something else entirely. Something squalid and unrepairable has happened to the souls of these people. You won't find that on any Cenotaph.

Darth,

"... people who threw two live human beings into a furnace in Tralee,buried an old man up to his neck at the sea shore so he drowned ..."

I've never heard of these two incidents ... can you please provide more information on them, or point me in the right direction as to where to find it on my own? I'm not challenging you, I'm just seeking out more detailed info on those events.

The two thrown into the furnace were Auxiliaries taken prisoners , while the man buried up to his neck was a magistrate-somewhere in Kerry I think, who had been shot, but inconsiderately refused to die, so his assailants came back and did for him in this original fashion. I'll try to get names for you tonight, but it isn't information immediately to hand. There was a book published about 4 years ago detailing RIC casualties 1919-21 which I recall mentioning the former incident.

I for one would like to humanely euthanase this thread.

"I am just like the Nazis."

Wikipedia give RM Lendrum as having been drowned in this manner in Doonbeg Co Clare in Septemebr 1920

Thanks, Darth. I appreciate you taking the time out.

* Wikipedia give RM Lendrum as having been drowned in this manner in Doonbeg Co Clare in Septemebr 1920
Posted by: darthrumsfeld at October 4, 2005 04:47 PM *

Wikipedia is not objective and therefore shouldn't be considered trustworthy in this discussion.

Can you please forward or post verifiable background or source information for fear that I might misunderstand your postings as unsubstantiated rumour and/or urban myth.

Searching the ‘net for the name Lendrum I did find info about a Canadian from the beaches of D-Day and a NI excorcist…

http://www.members.shaw.ca/kcic1/military.html

http://www.6juin1944.com/assaut/juno/page.php?page=3

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1426421,00.html

found it in the DCU library..

http://webpages.dcu.ie/~foxs/irhist/Sept%201920%20-%2022%20-%20rineen_ambush.htm

I just don't have the time to get involved in lengthy arguments, so here are just a few points.

1) I was asked to write about how Protestants west of the Bann were feeling. That is what I did. Anyone who thinks reporting feelings is somehow irrelevant is a saddo.

2) To quote others does not necessarily imply agreement.

3) I work hard to understand those about whom I write. Among my subjects as a biographer have been Patrick Pearse and James Connolly, Victor Gollancz (far-left publisher with a hang-up about his Jewishness), the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, The Economist, the Orange Order and Cecil King and Hugh Cudlipp - two left-wing Titans of Fleet Street who turned the Daily Mirror into the world's most successful newspaper. That does not necessarily mean I am a revolutionary/communist fellow-traveller/diplomat/liberal economist/Protestant/ Labour propagandist with an Oedipus complex.

3) (play the ball-edited Moderator)
Ruth

ruth

Or perhaps he talked to much sense for you to deal with !!

Fair play to you Ruth. I doubt whether many of us consider you to have dealt with Billy Pilgrim's piece in anything approaching a satisfactory fashion but you had the (metaphorical) balls to reply nonetheless.

Regards.

So, everything is explained. RDE is a working journalist- of sorts- she writes for anyone who asks her, in any style they require. Expert on many points of view, she does not necessarily agree with the people she is quoting. As commissions from the Jewish Chronicle, Pravda, the Morning Star and the Starry Plough are a bit thin on the ground, she gladly accepts money from the Belfast Telegraph. Here the wisdom of playing the game not the man emerges: why bother with an ad feminem attack when the authoress will merely disassociate herself from her own article? So the real topic of debate is the Unionist population West of the Bann and their (alleged) gripes. By all accounts there is nothing new here: Book of Isaiah, Kipling’s poem, for some unearthly reason RDE omitted to mention the one about they’re loyal to the half-crown, not the crown. There is no new thought among West Bann Protestants, and no visible process of aggiornamento whereby they reconcile themselves to their minority status. They most resemble the Israeli settlers of the Gaza strip: they have grown up to think it is only natural that an entire army should be deployed to keep them in situ. Even from the point of view of the state that they profess to be part of, these people are unbearably selfish. Think of all the soldiers lives (British, Israeli) that could have been spa