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Post by cato on Sept 26, 2020 15:54:17 GMT
Sean Haughey TD read into the Dail record this week allegations that the IRA chief of staff of the early 1970s was a Garda informant. Haughey senior was accused with Neal Blaney and rogue army officers of planning to import guns to arm Northern nationalists under fire from loyalist and RUC violence. All were aquited and strong rumours have always indicated they were thrown under the bus to cover up a wider government plan that backfired.
The chair in the Dail this week during the revelations was the historian and Sinn Fein TD Aengus O Snodaigh! He looked pretty stone faced at the junior deputy Haughey read from a new history of the affair that involved the creation of the provisional IRA. For many people it's all ancient history but for a few months many people in the Irish Republic fantasised about an armed invasion of the North, or a UN intervention . Thankfully that moment passed.
What did happen over 30 years was horrific enough but we were spared a Yugoslavia style war on our island. I hope these two new books get the attention and debate they deserve.
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Post by assisi on Sept 26, 2020 18:46:01 GMT
Sean Haughey TD read into the Dail record this week allegations that the IRA chief of staff of the early 1970s was a Garda informant. Haughey senior was accused with Neal Blaney and rogue army officers of planning to import guns to arm Northern nationalists under fire from loyalist and RUC violence. All were aquited and strong rumours have always indicated they were thrown under the bus to cover up a wider government plan that backfired. The chair in the Dail this week during the revelations was the historian and Sinn Fein TD Aengus O Snodaigh! He looked pretty stone faced at the junior deputy Haughey read from a new history of the affair that involved the creation of the provisional IRA. For many people it's all ancient history but for a few months many people in the Irish Republic fantasised about an armed invasion of the North, or a UN intervention . Thankfully that moment passed. What did happen over 30 years was horrific enough but we were spared a Yugoslavia style war on our island. I hope these two new books get the attention and debate they deserve. I've recently been reading bits of a blog by a former Derry Provo who turned anti-violence early in the Northern troubles. His articles are scathingly anti-IRA/Sinn Fein and the theme of the need for repentance figures strongly. Below is one of his articles that touches on the early days of the troubles in Derry. I can't vouch for the all the articles' veracity but you can make up your own mind. irishpeaceprocess.blog/2019/08/15/the-iras-lie-of-the-necessary-armed-struggle/ |
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Post by cato on Sept 26, 2020 19:44:40 GMT
Sean Haughey TD read into the Dail record this week allegations that the IRA chief of staff of the early 1970s was a Garda informant. Haughey senior was accused with Neal Blaney and rogue army officers of planning to import guns to arm Northern nationalists under fire from loyalist and RUC violence. All were aquited and strong rumours have always indicated they were thrown under the bus to cover up a wider government plan that backfired. The chair in the Dail this week during the revelations was the historian and Sinn Fein TD Aengus O Snodaigh! He looked pretty stone faced at the junior deputy Haughey read from a new history of the affair that involved the creation of the provisional IRA. For many people it's all ancient history but for a few months many people in the Irish Republic fantasised about an armed invasion of the North, or a UN intervention . Thankfully that moment passed. What did happen over 30 years was horrific enough but we were spared a Yugoslavia style war on our island. I hope these two new books get the attention and debate they deserve. I've recently been reading bits of a blog by a former Derry Provo who turned anti-violence early in the Northern troubles. His articles are scathingly anti-IRA/Sinn Fein and the theme of the need for repentance figures strongly. I was always struck when UVF head Gusty Spence announced their decommissioning of paramilitary weapons he used the words " true and abject remorse" for their brutal sectarian killings. I don't recall the IRA making a similar apology but I may be wrong. The Provo campaign put the cause of national unity back generations and created powerful and painful sores among the unionist people dividing us further. The notion of repentance is a powerful one but it seems few if any people in public life feel it applies to them. There is much nonsense talk on social media and other places about Irish unification when we get a headcount of 50% plus one in a border poll. Some of them seem to be totally tone deaf when it comes to the legacy of the dirty war. |
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Post by cato on Sept 29, 2020 9:46:42 GMT
In fairness to the other side of the story Des O Malley who was a cabinet minister at the time ,had an article in last week's Sunday Independent where he stated the conventional interpretation of events that the whole affair was a rogue operation and illegal plot that the government as a whole did not approve of.
He claims there have always been rumours of a major IRA informer ( put out by the Workers Party/Official IRA) and that the secret state archives were weeded out probably during one of Charlie Haugheys stints in government. O Malley denounces the new books as sensationalist.
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