Page 11 | Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland

shoulditbethishard1 · 2023-05-22T21:31:52+00:00

Thought provoking, upsetting and realised that there’s still so much more I don’t know about the troubles Did anyone else watch it?

YokoOnosBigHat · 08/10/2023 22:23

Anabella321 · 08/10/2023 22:14

@YokoOnosBigHat there's also the fact that people didn't actually think that Margaret Thatcher would allow 10 men to die. They obviously went into the hunger strike hoping for a different outcome. They were just looking for the reinstatement of political prisoner status which they had previously had.

Yes, I can totally understand that. I mean, who would have foreseen that? I come from a family very opposed to Thatcher- in fact one of my earliest memories is of my grandparents coming round to ours with a bottle of champagne the night she was forced out of Downing Street, mainly because I hadn't long started school and it was a school night... We had fish and chips for tea, it was very exciting!- but even so, when I first learnt of the hunger strikers and viewed footage of her talking about them, even I was shocked and how cold she was. These were peoples lives and those were peoples sons and brothers and husbands and fathers... the way she dismissed their humanity and their cause like it was nothing was shocking even to me, and I knew what a wicked old cunt* she was.

*excuse the language, I think it's warranted in this case.

DownNative · 09/10/2023 00:44

YokoOnosBigHat · 08/10/2023 22:18

@DownNative I don't know if you're familiar with the area but South Quay basically is Canary Wharf. Okay it's not the Canada Square building that gives CW its name but you can walk between that building and SQ in less than five minutes over the bridge that goes across South Dock. That article talks about how the CS building wasn't damaged, but it's semantics, that whole area is known as Canary Wharf. Also CW is tall, you can see it from all over London, it makes sense to call it "the Canary Wharf bombing" because then everyone knows exactly where you mean, South Quay would be a bit more ambiguous outside of East London.

That's an interesting article, but all it really tells me is that poor Londoners in one of its poorest boroughs were overlooked in favour of the moneyed gang a few hundred yards up the road... that's not really that unusual, especially the way news is reported. I'm not familiar with the area, but I imagine that there were ordinary citizens homes and poorer areas that were wrecked or destroyed in 9/11, but we don't think "that was an attack on Joe Bloggs flat", we think of Cantor Fitzgerald and millions of dollars being wiped off of Wall Street in half an hour (and that's who they were targeting, let's face it).

I can't comment on your opinions- they're interesting and certainly add to the over all tapestry of this story, but it seems that your views and experiences are unusual from what others have commented. I would certainly like to read more from sources that support your views and show it wasn't entirely unusual in NI at the time, if you can source any.

If you can let me know which views you're thinking of, I can certainly provide various amounts of sources.

I mean, you could certainly start with the fact that a clear majority of Catholics in 1967 and 1998 agreed there was no justification for PIRA violence to end partition. Remarkably consistent throughout Troubles. See attachments.

You'll find the 1967 image is from the American political scientist Richard Rose's book, "Governing Without Consensus". It's widely described as a seminal work. Valuable for its survey.

YokoOnosBigHat · 14/10/2023 03:31

Just wanted to come back to this thread and say that this week I've read Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland and I cant recommend it enough... genuinely some of the facts in that book blew my mind. If you haven't read it and have an interest in the Troubles then you must get your hands on a copy.

Someone's also made an excellent readers guide to the book on a blog too, which is brilliant at explaining everything for those of us who are less educated on the topic.

DownNative · 16/10/2023 09:37

YokoOnosBigHat · 14/10/2023 03:31

Just wanted to come back to this thread and say that this week I've read Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland and I cant recommend it enough... genuinely some of the facts in that book blew my mind. If you haven't read it and have an interest in the Troubles then you must get your hands on a copy.

Someone's also made an excellent readers guide to the book on a blog too, which is brilliant at explaining everything for those of us who are less educated on the topic.

I've heard it's a good book, but not got this one myself as I've loads of books on the subject still to read.

But it's about the PIRAs abduction and murder of Jean McConville, mother of 10 (I think!) and whose husband had died of cancer a couple of years before. IIRC, Jean was originally a Protestant but converted to Catholicism in order to marry her husband.

PIRA spent many years lying about her, especially claiming she was an informant aka tout. Zero evidence of that, but the lie was intended to ruin her reputation and ensure Republicans didn't give information to the Peelers.

Shocking murder.

Her granddaughter, Bronagh was in a documentary with Patrick Kielty and those from the opposite political view that I felt was better than Once Upon A Time In Northern Ireland.

Also, Once Upon A Time In Iraq is said to be miles better than OUATINI too.

LadyEloise1 · 16/10/2023 14:11

Jean Mc Conville's story and that of her family is tragic.

Fluorescentgem · 22/05/2024 12:50

I hope the son of the victim of the bookies murders gets justice for his father. There was undoubtedly collusion between the British forces and the UDA in these murders.