Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland

[shoulditbethishard1]

Thought provoking, upsetting and realised that there’s still so much more I don’t know about the troubles

Did anyone else watch it?

@DownNative Interesting to hear the views of a Catholic unionist.

And is also ongoing, just not covered in the press.

@DownNative really interesting posts, thank you! Also interesting to read about the point of view of a catholic unionist. Are The Troubles/NI history just something you're really interested in (and informed about)?

@DownNative very interesting posts and really well explained. One thing that struck me about the documentary was how graphic and intense some of the video footage was. I've watched and read a sizeable amount about Irish history and politics over the years and I can't recall seeing material that was so unfiltered before. I said to DP during the Bloody Friday images, this is grim unvarnished reality. I found parts of it quite upsetting despite being well familiar with the general narrative.

I wondered if they had somehow been allowed to go further than what had been shown on TV before?

I can't believe people on here saying they didn't know about the civil rights situation of the Catholics in Northern Ireland. I'm 52 and from Glasgow . Admittedly, I am from Irish Catholic ancestry but my South of England non religion whatsoever husband knew all about it when I met him in his 20s. It was disgraceful how they were treated ! I can understand younger people maybe not knowing but come on!

Agree. I find it hard to understand that people would listen to the news day in day out about the troubles for 20 years or so and never look into the reasons behind it and try to understand why it was happening. I'm from the republic of Ireland and my husband is English, his families ignorance about it all shocked me, my mil still gets confused between Northern Ireland and the Republic 😩

Agree. I find it hard to understand that people would listen to the news day in day out about the troubles for 20 years or so and never look into the reasons behind it and try to understand why it was happening

When you are a teenager, it's not exactly top priority. It was also hard to get non biased information. NI seemed a long long way away from my world.

@Dulra it's shameful! I admit my maw and nana(Irish born) used to tell us to be quiet and careful how we spoke as we had/have our problems with sectarianism in Glasgow(not to any extent same as NI though and they were frightened as they had experienced it, but we used to talk about it as Thatcher was horrendous. She was brought the world to look at NI when she ignored The Hunger Strikers. It was all so senseless. Yes I think the sins of the Empire is still very much hidden and forgotten in this shitty wee island .😭 I doubt alot of people over here actually realise how NI actually came about in the first place . We learned about it because we went to state Catholic schools and they told us.

@cakeorwine maybe so . I don't know where you are but I was from Glasgow,so alot of us where off the Irish and had Irish relatives etc and some used to go over on the ferry and it wasn't that far . I didn't have any connections with Liverpool in the 80s but I remember being really upset when Hillsborough happened though.

It's been interesting watching the second part.

Talking about people who were disappeared, the tarring and feathering of teenage girls and women who socialised with soldiers - plus much more.

A world away from my world back then.

My experience was the same as @cakeorwine I was a self obsessed teenager growing up in a rural community with no connection to any religion, or Ireland and ‘The News’ didn’t feature for me. It was Top of the Pops, and Jackie magazine. Shallow, I know.
I do feel shamed by my lack of knowledge and understanding.

@shoulditbethishard1

Internment?
Bloody Sunday?
Ballymurphy?
And the rest?( unarmed civilians shot dead by Army?)

Fair enough . I had the Jackie n Wham n TOTP but we also had my brothers and myself facing long periods of unemployment (not through the want of trying for jobs, it was awful) . Being put on shitty YTS and Job Creation schemes where there was one job available for 12 weans on it and they have it to the boy and the Poll tax early. The joys! 😂

*gave

My dad was working in that Manchester shopping centre as a joiner, a few days before they blew it up . He was like " stupid arseholes , I sympathise with your cause but that is not the to do it . Violence is never the way. Ever " . Ordinary people on both died . So senseless and sad.

It was horrific. I think Britain as a country has to accept the amount of state infiltration in the violence as well. Our government at the time were disgusting. There were agents on boths sides of the terrorists camps working from Britain. This is a well accepted fact. In fact, one of Gerry Adam's main men was a British agent and he may have been responsible for God knows what. Another one died last week and was know as the bloodiest murderer in the IRA. Stakeknife . I studied Anglo Irish History a while back and like to keep myself up to date. It was truly a WAR and horrific, despite the British government calling it the "Troubles". Absolutely heartbreaking and I sincerely hope that all the Irish people /NI people of all religions etc can live peacefully . They deserve it.

However, the reality is that it's NOT only Great Britain's citizens who are not knowledgeable, ignorant or uneducated about the Troubles.

The same is true in the Republic of Ireland across various age groups, in fact. The attached image is from a survey published in April 2023 and based in the Republic of Ireland. The results indicate that not only does the Irish Republic not teach the Troubles, but that propaganda fills the void instead of State education. That leads to a very pro-Nationalist bias and view of the history.

It's so out of kilter it's not funny.

Personally, I wouldn't necessarily be shocked at people from anywhere in not really understanding or knowing much about it. For one thing, we're a small country and for another you really have to get past a load of propaganda first. And that is overwhelming for most people.

Knowing real history takes a lot of time and effort. Propaganda is very much simplified and highly selective bits of history picked to suit a very particular narrative.

I knew and cared about all that, I didn’t know the civil rights aspect. Noraid used to claim the Catholics didn’t have the vote in the 80s, obviously untrue and I assumed based on there being no Labour Conservative representation. My ignorance about the one man one vote issue isn’t from lack of interest.

The same is true in the Republic of Ireland across various age groups,

Tbf though they understand that Northern Ireland is a separate country which many in England don't seem to realise.

No, the Troubles was absolutely NOT a war by any means.

What we had was a terrorist campaign of unjustified murder with an alternative which was democracy.

WW1 and 2 was a war. Ukraine today is a war.

Northern Ireland? Not even close. We never actually descended into a civil war at all - a point well made by Hume, actually. Northern Ireland was not something like Lebanon by any means.

We were able to go to school, work and play. It's not like it was every day someone was murdered or a bomb set off. Society didn't collapse and the presence of the army ensured we didn't have a civil war.

None of this can actually happen in Ukraine.

The use of touts (informers) is little understood by the general public, but it's not really the case that they were let loose by the government to murder. Considering the infiltration and turning of IRA terrorists into touts was an important factor in their eventual defeat, the Republicans have an interest in muddying the waters on that aspect.

Sage Despatches seriously details a huge amount of information on the issue of touts aka informers aka Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS) on their blog here:

https://sagedespatches.wordpress.com/2022/02/18/the-collusion-delusion-part-1/

News articles, Government reports, police reports, you name it.....it's all there. Even provides them for download too.

The defeat of any fundamentalist terrorist organisation cannot be done without the use of touts within their ranks. Every government everywhere understands this.

Stakeknife died just over a month ago as did the PIRA and RIRA terrorist Colm Murphy (1998 Omagh bomber).

I think to say the republic was and is pro nationalist. Is to say…and. I grew up with IRA graffiti on the traffic lights next to my school. Teachers openly making it bigoted comments in class. People saying what would now be considered horrendous comments about people. So no the south was not unbiased. But to understand that you need to understand the hold of the church. My parents weren’t allowed in any of the Protestant religion churches growing up. It was us and them. It is no coincidence that the entire is.and went on a upward trajectory at the same time. End of the troubles, fall of the church. Increased multicultarism.

there is no way anything could tell you the whole story. This is an oral history project. And in terms of primary historical evidence. There is no better. They don’t need to talk about gerrymandering etc. history book will do that for us. They are telling their story.

I think to compare the Republic of Ireland and England on this issue is redundant. To be biased in favour of one side is not to be ignorant. It’s to be intentionally blinkered. There is a difference.

Thanks for the compliment!

Well, I can honestly say that the Troubles was part of my family's life and I grew up during the 1980s into the 1990s. My mother and her siblings were still kids when it started so they knew a Northern Ireland before the Troubles.

And, yes, we were also targets of the Provisional I.R.A too. A relative was murdered by them and they chased our family car two months later intending to murder me, my sibling and parents. Obviously they failed as my father was highly trained in defensive and evasive driving. We survived, of course.

As an adult, I have a keen interest in terrorism, counterterrorism and security. So you can see I'll not only provide details but will often source them.

Although I'm a Catholic Unionist, I have a lot of respect for John Hume who was a Catholic Nationalist leader of the SDLP. I use his words a lot because it's true what he said and I cannot also be accused of bias so easily.

Unlike Hume, I don't identify as Irish but I do identify as Northern Irish and British.

I am a Catholic Unionist. My views and experiences are very different from @DownNative's.

As is your absolute right to define yourself any which way you want. I spent a good part of my teenage years denying NI people were Irish. At a certain age you been to reject the oppressive prejudice of those around you and indulge in self righteous judgement of your own.