More Shame for the GAA #542568

That’s an awful tramp of a post. Wtf do you think was going on then and since?

These are the exact clueless cunts who attack SF/IRA

Basically they were getting slaughtered in a state-organized genocide you clueless wanker.

@Breaking_my_balls is an RIC man.

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In 1919??? A state sponsored slaughter?

Is it? Just answer the question. Outline the fight put up by Northern Nationalists from 1919-1921 when the War of Independence was there to be won. Going on about what is being happening since is irrelevant seeing as my question is to do with when it mattered. I’m all ears.

Complete opposite and we’ve the medals to prove it mate.

You stupid bollox. You might as well where was Tom Barry when he was needed in the north.

So nothing then??

Zero

Tom Barry was a Cork man, a West Cork man. SeĂĄn Moylan and Liam Lynch in Cork. Breen and Tracey in Tipp. Finn in Limerick. They commanded a few thousand committed men poorly armed. The IRA was organised on regional basis, so looking for Tom Barry to dig ye out sums ye up. Again the question stands, where were all the thousands of Ulster Nationalist men when it mattered?

Being interned, executed and burned out while waiting for the promised Northern offensive perhaps? Not to dismiss anything that happened, or anyone’s role -but there’s an element of weekend warriorism in comparison

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I’d like to read about the internment, executions and burning of homes in Ulster during the War of Independence, any links?? Was it very widespread??

Hoist on your own petard?

Barry famously asked the other IRA units across the country to dig a few trenches across the roads if they couldn’t do anything else, seeing as more than two thirds of all British Forces in Ireland at the height of it were in Munster. Did ye even manage that much?

Any link for this yet? Anything at all on Northern IRA units efforts to win independence during the War of Independence?? Anything will do

It’s not for me to educate pork. You seem to be in a deep enough trench of whataboutery and you’re obviously happy enough to be there. I could provide you with plenty of links or I could take you to four or five locations within a five mile radius were men were executed and beaten half to death by their state armed neighbours backed up by soldiers, police, courts and prisons.

In the Government of Ireland Act 1920 (enacted in December 1920), the British government attempted to solve the conflict by creating two Home Rule parliaments in Ireland: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. While Dáil Éireann ignored this, deeming the Irish Republic to be already in existence, Unionists in the north-east accepted it and prepared to form their own government. In this part of Ireland, which was predominantly Protestant and Unionist, there was, as a result, a very different pattern of violence from the rest of the country. Whereas in the south and west, the conflict was between the IRA and British forces, in the north-east and particularly in Belfast, it often developed into a cycle of sectarian killings between Catholics, who were largely Nationalist, and Protestants, who were mostly Unionist.

Summer 1920
While IRA attacks were less common in the north-east than elsewhere, the unionist community saw itself as being besieged by armed Catholic nationalists who seemed to have taken over the rest of Ireland. As a result, they retaliated against the northern Catholic community as a whole.[citation needed] Such action was largely condoned by the unionist leadership and abetted by state forces. James Craig, for instance, wrote in 1920:

The Loyalist rank and file have determined to take action… they now feel the situation is so desperate that unless the Government will take immediate action, it may be advisable for them to see what steps can be taken towards a system of ‘organised’ reprisals against the rebels.[89]

The first cycle of attacks and reprisals broke out in the summer of 1920. On 19 June a week of inter-sectarian rioting and sniping started in Derry, resulting in 18 deaths.[90] On 17 July 1920, a British Colonel Gerald Smyth was assassinated by the IRA in the County Club in Cork city in response to a speech that was made to police officers of Listowel who had refused orders to move into the more urban areas, in which he stated “you may make mistakes occasionally, and innocent persons may be shot, but that cannot be helped. No policeman will get in trouble for shooting any man”.[91][92] Smyth came from Banbridge, County Down in the north-east and his killing provoked retaliation there against Catholics in Banbridge and Dromore. On 21 July 1920, partly in response to the killing of Smyth and partly because of competition over jobs due to the high unemployment rate, loyalists marched on the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast and forced over 7,000 Catholic and left-wing Protestant workers from their jobs. Sectarian rioting broke out in response in Belfast and Derry, resulting in about 40 deaths and many Catholics and Protestants being expelled from their homes. On 22 August 1920, RIC Detective Swanzy was shot dead by Cork IRA men while leaving church in Lisburn, County Antrim. Swanzy had been blamed by an inquest jury for the killing of Cork Mayor Tomás Mac Curtain. In revenge, local Loyalists burned Catholic residential areas of Lisburn – destroying over 300 homes. While several people were later prosecuted for the burnings, no attempt seems to have been made to halt the attacks at the time. Michael Collins, acting on a suggestion by Seán MacEntee, organised a boycott of Belfast goods in response to the attacks on the Catholic community. The Dáil approved a partial boycott on 6 August and a more complete one was implemented by the end of 1920.

Spring 1921
After a lull in violence in the north over the new year, killings there intensified again in the spring of 1921. The northern IRA units came under pressure from the leadership in Dublin to step up attacks in line with the rest of the country. Predictably, this unleashed loyalist reprisals against Catholics. For example, in April 1921, the IRA in Belfast shot dead two Auxiliaries in Donegal Place in Belfast city centre. The same night, two Catholics were killed on the Falls Road. On 10 July 1921 the IRA ambushed British forces in Raglan street in Belfast. In the following week, sixteen Catholics were killed and 216 Catholic homes burned in reprisal – events known as Belfast’s Bloody Sunday.

Killings on the loyalist side were largely carried out by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), allegedly with the aid of the RIC and especially the auxiliary police force, the Ulster Special Constabulary or “B-Specials”. The Special Constabulary (set up in September 1920), was largely recruited from Ulster Volunteer Force and Orange Lodges and, in the words of historian Michael Hopkinson, “amounted to an officially approved UVF”.[93] In May James Craig came to Dublin to meet the British Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord FitzAlan, and was smuggled by the IRA through Dublin to meet Éamon de Valera. The two leaders discussed the possibility of a truce in Ulster and an amnesty for prisoners. Craig proposed a compromise settlement based on the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, with limited independence for the South and autonomy for the North within a Home Rule context. However, the talks came to nothing and violence in the north continued.[94]

July 1921 – May 1922
While the fighting in the south was largely ended by the Truce on 11 July 1921, in the north killings continued and actually escalated until the summer of 1922. In Belfast, 16 people were killed in the two days after the truce alone. The violence in the city took place in bursts, as attacks on both Catholics and Protestants were rapidly followed by reprisals on the other community. In this way, 20 people died in street fighting and assassinations in north and west Belfast over 29 August to 1 September 1921 and another 30 from 21–25 November. Loyalists had by this time taken to firing and throwing bombs randomly into Catholic areas and the IRA responded by bombing trams which took Protestant workers to their places of employment.[95]

Moreover, despite the Dáil’s acceptance of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in January 1922, which confirmed the future existence of Northern Ireland, there were clashes between the IRA and British forces along the new border from early 1922. In part, this reflected Michael Collins’ view that the Treaty was a tactical move, or “stepping stone”, rather than a final settlement. A number of IRA men were arrested in Derry when they travelled there as part of the Monaghan Gaelic football team. In retaliation, Michael Collins had forty-two loyalists taken hostage in Fermanagh and Tyrone. Right after this incident, a group of B-Specials were confronted by an IRA unit at Clones in Southern territory, who demanded that they surrender. The IRA unit’s leader was shot dead and a gun battle broke out, in which four Special Constables were killed. The withdrawal of British troops from Ireland was temporarily suspended as a result of this event. Despite the setting up of a Border Commission to mediate between the two sides in late February, the IRA raided three British barracks along the border in March. All of these actions provoked retaliatory killings in Belfast. In the two days after the Fermanagh kidnappings, 30 people lost their lives in the city, including four Catholic children and two women who were killed by a Loyalist bomb on Weaver Street. In March, 60 died in Belfast, including six members of the Catholic McMahon family, who were targeted for assassination by members of the Special Constabulary in revenge for the IRA killing of two policemen (See McMahon murders).[96] In April, another 30 people died in the Northern capital, including another so called ‘uniform attack’, the Arnon Street Massacre, when six Catholics were killed by uniformed policemen.[97]

Winston Churchill arranged a meeting between Collins and James Craig on 21 January 1922 and the southern boycott of Belfast goods was lifted but then re-imposed after several weeks. The two leaders had several further meetings, but despite a joint declaration that “Peace is declared” on 30 March, the violence continued.[98]

May–June 1922
In May and June 1922, Collins launched a guerrilla IRA offensive against Northern Ireland. By this time, the IRA was split over the Anglo-Irish Treaty, but both pro and anti-treaty units were involved in the operation. Some of the arms sent by the British to arm the new Irish Army were in fact given to IRA units and their weapons sent to the North.[99] However, the offensive, launched with a series of IRA attacks in the North on 17–19 May, ultimately proved a failure. An IRA Belfast Brigade report in late May concluded that continuing the offensive was “futile and foolish…the only result of the attack was to place the Catholic population at the mercy of the Specials”.[100]

On 22 May, after the assassination of West Belfast Unionist MP William Twaddell, 350 IRA men were arrested in Belfast, crippling its organisation there.[101] The largest single clash came in June, when British troops used artillery to dislodge an IRA unit from the village of Pettigo, killing seven, wounding six and taking four prisoners. This was the last major confrontation between the IRA and British forces in the period 1919–1922.[102] The cycle of sectarian atrocities against civilians however continued into June 1922. May saw 75 people killed in Belfast and another 30 died there in June. Several thousand Catholics fled the violence and sought refuge in Glasgow and Dublin.[103] On 17 June, in revenge for the killing of two Catholics by the B-Specials, Frank Aiken’s IRA unit shot ten Protestant civilians, killing six in and around Altnaveigh, south Armagh. Three Special Constables were also killed in the shootings.[104]

Michael Collins held the British Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson (by then MP for North Down) responsible for the attacks on Catholics in the north and may have been behind his assassination in June 1922, though who ordered the shooting is unproven.[105] The event helped to trigger the Irish Civil War. Winston Churchill insisted after the killing that Collins take action against the Anti-Treaty IRA, whom he assumed to be responsible.[106] The outbreak of the civil war in the South ended the violence in the North, as the war demoralised the IRA in the north east and distracted the attention of the rest of the organisation from the question of partition. After Collins’ death in August 1922, the new Irish Free State quietly ended Collins’ policy of covert armed action in Northern Ireland.

The violence in the north fizzled out by late 1922, the last reported killing of the conflict in what was now Northern Ireland took place on 5 October.[107]

Detention
During the 1920s, the HMS Argenta vessel was used as a military base and prison ship for the holding of Irish Republicans by the British government as part of their internment strategy after Bloody Sunday. Cloistered below decks in cages which held 50 internees, the prisoners were forced to use broken toilets which overflowed frequently into their communal area. Deprived of tables, the already weakened men ate off the floor, frequently succumbing to disease and illness as a result. There were several hunger strikes, including a major strike involving upwards of 150 men in the winter of 1923.[108]

By February 1923, under the 1922 Special Powers Act the British were detaining 263 men on the Argenta, which was moored in Belfast Lough. This was supplemented with internment at other land based sites such as Larne workhouse, Belfast Prison and Derry Gaol. Together, both the ship and the workhouse alone held 542 men without trial at the highest internment population level during June 1923.[108]

You could but you haven’t :slight_smile: And if all this was going on, still no resistance?? No armed resistance in the middle of a War of Independence?? Fucking strange that. Go on, educate me please…

You’ve fucking BSE.

Why the fuck should some randomer on TFK have to educate you on warcrimes carried out in your own country? And where the fuck were you during the Ulster rebellion? Actively undermining the O’Neills like a chicken-shit woman. That’s about as sensible a point.