A Mitsu-bits-ie…
Ok I’ve read enough books lately and watched Say Nothing twice so I guess it’s time to give an opinion/ask questions on The Troubles.
Did The IRA not cop out by making the Brits the main enemy? I mean, would the British government not have been happy to hand it all over? Are the Prods/Loyalists/Unionists not the ones who should have got the brunt of Republican ire?
Say Nothing has been discredited by almost everyone in it including the McConville family so you can probably ignore it if it is actual facts you are after.
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I think the book is very close to the truth.
In what way?
As was Daithai O Conaill
Introduced the car bomb to the war
( teacher from Cork)
Chief of staff
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No. The British Government and Royal Family, a colonising occupier were the only units who could have a direct hand in the decision making to invade, and/or withdraw.
When the conflict came into world news good and proper as a result of the high profile nature of men starving themselves to death in prison, Maggie Thatcher pawned it off as crazy Irish catholics fighting crazy Irish protestants as an attempted deflection.
Some republicans, mostly but not all high stool republicans bought into this and sectarian hatred went up a lot of notches, but those with a sufficient knowledge of history knew that it was protestants that started republicanism and the some of the long revolution’s biggest characters were protestant. In the modern day, the provos had an English born chief of staff to a ulster protestant mother from East Belfast.
It was always over territory, ill gotten and brutally protected as well as the eroding civil rights of the nationalist community within.
Kingsmill was the standout intentionally sectarian attack by the IRA, which was a reaction to sectarianism from the other side and was likely meant to be seen a warning shot that they had personnel to play outside of the rules of war if sufficiently provoked, which they at times did.
The IRA had it’s greatest successes if you’d want to use that term in the assassination of Mountbatten, and the Docklands bombing and I’d probably add Airey Neave’s killing by the INLA and the whisker-close attempt at nailing Thatcher in Brighton.
They needed the support of the people to conduct a war. Murdering innocent civilians didn’t help that. Targeting royalty, tory politicians and pocket of the british government did, as they did with the docklands.
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Michael McConville excoriates it because he is of the view that his mother’s abduction and murder is not entertainment which is fair enough. Gerry condemns it because it puts him at the heart of the Belfast IRA. Well he would, wouldn’t he? Marian Price condemns it as it casts her as the person who pulled the trigger on Jean McConville. Well she would, wouldn’t she?
To my eye, an awful lot of it is factually correct.
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There was very little complaint about the book afaik.
The book and series are based on The Boston College Tapes which are unreliable at best and have been called as much by the judge in the Ivor Bell trial. I don’t think we will ever know for sure.
Joe Lynskey’s body being found just after the tv series aired is some coincidence.
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Nobody sued when the book came out 
In addition, Bell was at the time of the charges, suffering from dementia. The judge ruled I think that the tapes weren’t reliable enough to be used in evidence. Bell couldn’t defend himself. I don’t think the judge said whether he felt on balance that the tapes were inaccurate, and one must suspect that they are nearly all true, given they were unforced interviews given under (incorrect as it turns out) guarantee of privacy.
I don’t think the PSNI should have prosecuted based upon them (nor forced their handover), but they were in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario.
The judge actually ruled that there was overwhelming evidence that it was Ivor Bell himself on the recordings, freely admitting his role in the barbarity, but quite correctly ruled that of themselves they couldn’t be used as concrete evidence against someone who by then could not mount a defence.
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I don’t really disagree but it’s awful hard figure out who is telling the truth about these historic crimes. All the protagonists have their own agenda some genuine some not so. The stakeknife podcast would have your head spinning.
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He was someone the world would have been better off without.
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The transit van barrack busters are circling.
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I’ve had a few people mentioning this to me over the Holidays. IRA atrocities not widely known about outside of Ireland. Even many in Britain don’t have an idea of them.
A lot of them are not widely known about outside of your head.
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You seem strangely preoccupied with mudguarding here on SSD.
Why get wound up that an international audience are seeing aspects of the conflict?
Similarly, many dont know of the state sponsored British atrocities either
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In terms of the conflict, both Bloody Sunday and the Hunger Strikes got most international attention.